wholesome

comparative more wholesome · comparative wholesomer · superlative most wholesome · superlative wholesomest · alternative holesom · alternative holesome · alternative wholsom · alternative wholsome

1. Promoting good physical health and well-being.

   Everything we do is so wholesome.

   1953, Dalton Trumbo, Ian McLellan Hunter, John Dighton, Roman Holiday, spoken by Princess Ann (Audrey Hepburn)

   1 more example

   I prethee go, and get me ſome repaſt, I care not what, ſo it be holſome foode.

   c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii], page 223, column 2

   Synonyms: healthy, healthful, salubrious

2. Promoting moral and mental well-being.

   Though hard, my friends, yet wholesome are the truths, taught in affliction's school, whence the pure soul rises refined, and soars above the world.

   1750, “Theodora”, Thomas Morell (lyrics), George Frideric Handel (music)

3. Favorable to morals, religion or prosperity; sensible; conducive to good; salutary; promoting virtue or being virtuous.

   A wholeſome tongue is a tree of life: but peruerſneſſe therein is a breach in the ſpirit.

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Proverbs 15:4, column 1

4. Marked by wholeness; sound and healthy.
5. Decent; innocuous; sweet.

   Sometimes white Lyllies did their Leaves afford, With wholſom Polly-flow'rs, to mend his homely Board: […]

   1697, Virgil, “The Fourth Book of the Georgics”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 128, lines 195–196

   4 more examples

   The more solicitous of the two was Nurse Cramer, a shapely, pretty, sexless girl with a wholesome unattractive face.

   1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Soldier in White”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 171

   There's something tragic, but almost pure Think I could love you, but I'm not sure There's something wholesome, there's something sweet Tucked in your eyes that I'd love to meet

   2017 April 13, Mitchy Collins, Samantha Derosa, Christian Medice, “Broken”, in Finding It Hard to Smile, performed by Lovelytheband

   Around the same time, “wholesome” memes of cute doggos and puppers rejuvenated social media feeds that seemed daily filled with fresh horrors.

   2019, Gretchen McCulloch, Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language, Riverhead Books, →ISBN

   The comment section on a recent post making fun of a “cute” and “wholesome” Doomer Girl meme is mixed.

   2020 February 3, Kaitlyn Tiffany, “The Misogynistic Joke That Became a Goth-Meme Fairy Tale”, in The Atlantic