WHOLESOME

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does wholesome mean? 

• WHOLESOME (adjective)
  The adjective WHOLESOME has 2 senses:

1. conducive to or characteristic of physical or moral well-being

2. sound or exhibiting soundness in body or mind

  Familiarity information: WHOLESOME used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• WHOLESOME (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Conducive to or characteristic of physical or moral well-being

Context example:

wholesome food

Similar:

alimental; alimentary; nourishing; nutrient; nutritious; nutritive (of or providing nourishment)

heart-healthy (of foods that are low in fats and sodium and other ingredients that may foster heart disease)

good for you; healthy; salubrious (promoting health; healthful)

hearty; satisfying; solid; square; substantial (providing abundant nourishment)

organic (of or relating to foodstuff grown or raised without synthetic fertilizers or pesticides or hormones)

salubrious (favorable to health of mind or body)

Also:

healthful (conducive to good health of body or mind)

healthy (having or indicating good health in body or mind; free from infirmity or disease)

sound (financially secure and safe)

Antonym:

unwholesome (detrimental to physical or moral well-being)

Derivation:

wholesomeness (the quality of being beneficial and generally good for you)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Sound or exhibiting soundness in body or mind

Context example:

a grin on his ugly wholesome face

Similar:

healthy (having or indicating good health in body or mind; free from infirmity or disease)

Derivation:

wholesomeness (the quality of being beneficial and generally good for you)

 Context examples 

Work is wholesome, and there is plenty for everyone.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

He broke into a laugh, hearty and wholesome.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

“I am glad of it. You are company to us both. It is wholesome to have you here. Wholesome for me, wholesome for Agnes, wholesome perhaps for all of us.”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

How quiet and sweet and wholesome the garden looked in the moonlight, and it could not be more than thirty feet down.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Ere long, I had reason to congratulate myself on the course of wholesome discipline to which I had thus forced my feelings to submit.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

She had tasted of consequence in its most flattering form; and he did hope that the loss of it, the sinking again into nothing, would awaken very wholesome regrets in her mind.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

I believe it is the only way that Mr. Woodhouse thinks the fruit thoroughly wholesome.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

I scolded him for it, but he argued quietly that it was very good and very wholesome; that it was life, strong life, and gave life to him.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Never before had I understood that deep-seated fear and wholesome respect which many centuries of bludgeoning at the hands of the law had beaten into the fierce and turbulent natives of these islands.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Their food, as I afterwards found, was coarse, but it was wholesome; and they procured a sufficiency of it.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)