όλος: 'all' and 'whole' | Greek Grammar

English splits this territory into four words. All for plurals, whole for singulars, everybody for people, everything for things — and you pick between them before you say anything. Greek has one word, όλος, for all four, and it tells you which one it means by agreeing with the noun. Once you can read that agreement, όλος stops being four separate problems and becomes one: get the ending right and the meaning follows.

The one thing to settle before anything else: όλος sits in front of the definite article and the article stays — όλος ο κόσμος, όλη τη μέρα, όλα τα παιδιά. That is not this page's business; the article rule, the case interactions and the final-ν detail all live on articles with όλος, numbers and quantifiers. This page is about the word itself: its forms, its two meanings, and what it does when it stands alone.

The paradigm: an ordinary adjective with an unusual job

όλος declines exactly like μεγάλος and every other -ος / -η / -ο adjective. There are no irregularities, and the stress never moves off the first syllable, no matter how long the ending gets.

	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
Nom. sg.	όλος	όλη	όλο
Gen. sg.	όλου	όλης	όλου
Acc. sg.	όλο / όλον	όλη	όλο
Nom. pl.	όλοι	όλες	όλα
Gen. pl.	όλων (one form for all three genders)
Acc. pl.	όλους	όλες	όλα

Two details worth pinning down. First, the genitive plural is όλων for every gender — there is no ×όλες or ×όλους to worry about in that slot, which makes the hardest case the easiest form. Second, the masculine accusative singular has two accepted forms, όλο and όλον (όλο τον χρόνο, όλον τον χρόνο); both are correct and neither is more formal. It is the article's -ν that is not optional, and that is on the quantifiers page.

Όλος ο δρόμος ήταν κλειστός από τη διαδήλωση.

ólos o dhrómos ítan klistós apó ti dhiadhílosi

The whole street was closed off because of the demonstration.

Τα ονόματα όλων των επιβατών ήταν σε μια λίστα στην πύλη.

ta onómata ólon ton epivatón ítan se mia lísta stin píli

The names of all the passengers were on a list at the gate.

Τους ξέρω όλους από μικρά παιδιά, παίζαμε μαζί στην ίδια αυλή.

tus kséro ólus apó mikrá pedhiá, pézame mazí stin ídhia avlí

I've known them all since they were little — we used to play together in the same courtyard.

Στη διάρκεια όλου του χειμώνα δεν αρρώστησε ούτε μια μέρα.

sti dhiárkia ólu tu chimóna dhen aróstise úte mia méra

He didn't get ill once the whole winter.

'Whole' or 'all'? The noun decides

This is the part English speakers have to build from scratch, because English chooses the word and Greek chooses the ending. The rule is mechanical:

όλος + singular count noun = "the whole" — one object, considered in its full extent.
όλος + plural noun = "all" — every member of a set.
όλος + singular mass noun = "all the" — the whole quantity of something uncountable.

Διάβασα όλο το βιβλίο σε δύο μέρες, δεν μπορούσα να το αφήσω.

dhiávasa ólo to vivlío se dhío méres, dhen borúsa na to afíso

I read the whole book in two days — I couldn't put it down.

Έφαγε μόνος του όλη την τούρτα και δεν άφησε ούτε κομμάτι.

éfaye mónos tu óli tin túrta ke dhen áfise úte komáti

He ate the whole cake by himself and didn't leave a single slice.

Όλες οι πτήσεις καθυστερούσαν λόγω της απεργίας.

óles i ptísis kathisterúsan lógho tis aperyías

All the flights were delayed because of the strike.

Ποιος ήπιε όλο το γάλα; Δεν έχει μείνει τίποτα για τον καφέ.

pios ípie ólo to ghála; dhen échi míni típota ya ton kafé

Who drank all the milk? There's none left for the coffee.

With a mass noun the two readings can genuinely blur — όλο το ψωμί is "all the bread" or "the whole loaf" depending on what is on the table. When you want to force the "entire, every last bit" reading, Greek reaches for a different word: ολόκληρος, an emphatic ordinary adjective that, unlike όλος, is happy without a definite article.

Περίμενα ολόκληρη ώρα στο τηλέφωνο και στο τέλος μου το έκλεισαν.

perímena olókliri óra sto tiléfono ke sto télos mu to éklisan

I waited a full hour on the phone and in the end they hung up on me.

💡

Do not translate the English word — read the Greek noun. Singular noun → "whole"; plural noun → "all". That single reflex covers όλη η πόλη (the whole city), όλες οι πόλεις (all the cities), όλο το κρασί (all the wine) without you ever having to decide between two English words.

Standing alone: όλοι = everybody, όλα = everything

Strip the noun away and όλος becomes a pronoun on its own. όλοι (masculine plural) means "everybody", όλα (neuter plural) means "everything" — and both are plural, which is where English speakers slip, because English everybody knows and everything is ready are grammatically singular.

Όλα άλλαξαν μέσα σε ένα καλοκαίρι.

óla álaksan mésa se éna kalokéri

Everything changed in the space of one summer.

Δεν τα ξέρω όλα, ρώτα κάποιον άλλο.

dhen ta kséro óla, róta kápion álo

I don't know everything — ask someone else.

The standalone forms also take a possessive clitic to mean "all of us / all of you / all of them" — όλοι μας, όλοι σας, όλοι τους — where English needs a partitive of.

Ήρθαμε όλοι μας, δεν έλειπε κανείς.

írthame óli mas, dhen élipe kanís

All of us came — nobody was missing.

Μας αφορά όλους, όχι μόνο εσένα.

mas aforá ólus, óchi móno eséna

It concerns all of us, not just you.

The floating όλος: Τα έφαγε όλα

Here is a piece of Greek syntax with no English counterpart to lean on. όλος does not have to stay next to its noun. It can detach and float to the end of the clause, still agreeing with the phrase it belongs to, and the sentence means the same thing with a slightly different emphasis — the totality becomes the news.

Τα παιδιά κοιμήθηκαν όλα πριν τις δέκα, θαύμα.

ta pedhiá kimíthikan óla prin tis dhéka, thávma

The kids were all asleep before ten — a miracle.

Τα έφαγε όλα και ζήτησε κι άλλο.

ta éfaye óla ke zítise ki álo

He ate the whole lot and asked for more.

Τους κάλεσα όλους στο σπίτι το Σάββατο.

tus kálesa ólus sto spíti to Sávato

I invited them all round to mine on Saturday.

Notice what the ending is doing in the second and third examples: όλα agrees with a neuter plural object and όλους with a masculine plural one, even though the noun itself is nowhere in the sentence — only the weak pronoun τα / τους. The agreement is your only clue to what is being totalled, so it has to be right.

One more position: a possessive clitic can slot between όλος and the article, producing the very idiomatic όλη μου τη ζωή ("all my life"). The alternative όλη τη ζωή μου is equally correct; see possessive determiners for why the clitic can sit in two places.

Όλη μου τη ζωή δούλευα με τα χέρια μου.

óli mu ti zoí dhúleva me ta chéria mu

I've worked with my hands all my life.

The high-frequency idioms

όλο και + comparative is how Greek says "more and more / -er and -er". There is no reduplication of πιο here — the pattern is fixed, and it is extremely common in both speech and journalism.

Το πρόβλημα γίνεται όλο και πιο σοβαρό και κανείς δεν κάνει τίποτα.

to próvlima yínete ólo ke pio sovaró ke kanís dhen káni típota

The problem is getting more and more serious and nobody is doing anything.

Bare όλο in front of a verb is an adverb meaning "constantly, keeps on" (informal):

Όλο ξεχνάω να τον πάρω τηλέφωνο.

ólo ksechnáo na ton páro tiléfono

I keep forgetting to ring him.

πάνω απ' όλα = "above all"; όλα κι όλα does double duty as "all told, in total" and, as an exclamation, "now hold on, there's a limit" (informal); είμαι όλος αυτιά = "I'm all ears", with όλος agreeing with the speaker.

Πάνω απ' όλα θέλω να είναι καλά τα παιδιά.

páno ap' óla thélo na íne kalá ta pedhiá

Above all I want the kids to be all right.

Όλα κι όλα, δεν του επιτρέπω να μου μιλάει έτσι!

óla ki óla, dhen tu epitrépo na mu milái étsi

Now hold on — I'm not letting him talk to me like that!

Είμαι όλος αυτιά, λέγε.

íme ólos aftiá, léye

I'm all ears — go on.

όλος against κάθε: one group or one at a time

όλος and κάθε both translate into the English quantifier zone around all / every, but they package the set differently, and the difference is visible in the meaning of the sentence. όλος is collective — it treats the set as a body. κάθε is distributive — it runs through the members one at a time.

Όλη η τάξη έφτιαξε μια αφίσα για τη γιορτή.

óli i táksi éftiakse mia afísa ya ti yortí

The whole class made a poster for the school celebration.

Κάθε παιδί έφτιαξε τη δική του αφίσα και τις κρεμάσαμε στον τοίχο.

káthe pedhí éftiakse ti dhikí tu afísa ke tis kremásame ston tícho

Each child made their own poster and we hung them on the wall.

One poster in the first sentence, twenty-five in the second — and the only difference is the quantifier. This is also why a collective predicate (gather, meet, surround) works with όλοι and not with κάθε, and why κάθε takes a singular verb while όλοι takes a plural one. The rest of κάθε's behaviour, including the pronoun ο καθένας, is on κάθε and καθένας.

💡

When a sentence gives every member of a group its own instance of something — a form each, a seat each, a poster each — reach for κάθε, not όλοι. Greek marks the distinction that English leaves to context in all the children drew a picture.

Common Mistakes

1. Using όλος with a bare singular to mean "every". όλος + singular noun means "the whole of it", so this produces a different sentence, not a stronger one.

❌ Όλο παιδί χρειάζεται ύπνο.

Incorrect — όλος cannot express distributive 'every' with a bare singular; that is κάθε παιδί.

✅ Κάθε παιδί χρειάζεται τις ώρες του ύπνου του, αλλιώς γίνεται ανυπόφορο.

káthe pedhí chriázete tis óres tu ípnu tu, aliós yínete anipófero

Every child needs their hours of sleep, otherwise they become unbearable.

2. Leaving όλος in its dictionary form. It is an adjective, so it takes the gender, number and case of the phrase it heads — not the shape you learned it in.

❌ Έφαγε όλος το φαγητό του.

Incorrect — the phrase is a neuter accusative object, so όλος must match it: όλο το φαγητό.

✅ Έφαγε όλο το φαγητό του και ζήτησε κι ένα παγωτό.

éfaye ólo to fayitó tu ke zítise ki éna paghotó

He ate all his food and then asked for an ice cream.

3. Making "everything" singular. English everything is is singular; Greek όλα είναι is plural, and the predicate follows.

❌ Όλο είναι έτοιμο για το πάρτι.

Incorrect — 'everything' is the neuter plural όλα with a plural verb and predicate: Όλα είναι έτοιμα.

✅ Όλα είναι έτοιμα για το πάρτι, μόνο η μουσική λείπει.

óla íne étima ya to párti, móno i musikí lípi

Everything's ready for the party — only the music is missing.

4. Forgetting that a possessor phrase goes genitive throughout. όλων is the form, and the noun and article go genitive with it.

❌ Ο δήμος ζητάει τη συμφωνία όλοι οι ιδιοκτήτες.

Incorrect — a possessor phrase is genitive from end to end: όλων των ιδιοκτητών.

✅ Ο δήμος ζητάει τη συμφωνία όλων των ιδιοκτητών πριν δώσει την άδεια.

o dhímos zitái ti simfonía ólon ton idhioktitón prin dhósi tin ádhia

The council wants all the owners' agreement before it issues the permit.

5. Building "more and more" by doubling πιο. The Greek pattern uses όλο και, and πιο appears only once.

❌ Η κατάσταση γίνεται πιο και πιο δύσκολη.

Incorrect — 'more and more' is όλο και πιο: γίνεται όλο και πιο δύσκολη.

✅ Η κατάσταση στο νοσοκομείο γίνεται όλο και πιο δύσκολη κάθε χρόνο.

i katástasi sto nosokomío yínete ólo ke pio dhískoli káthe chróno

The situation at the hospital gets more and more difficult every year.

Key Takeaways

όλος declines like a normal -ος / -η / -ο adjective, with the stress fixed on the first syllable, and the genitive plural is όλων for all three genders.
The noun's number chooses the English word: singular = "whole" (όλο το βιβλίο), plural = "all" (όλα τα βιβλία), mass singular = "all the" (όλο το γάλα).
On its own, όλοι = "everybody" and όλα = "everything", both plural — so Όλα είναι έτοιμα, never ×Όλο είναι έτοιμο.
όλος can float away from its noun to the end of the clause (Τα έφαγε όλα, Τους κάλεσα όλους), and its ending is then the only marker of what is being totalled.
Learn the idioms as fixed shapes: όλο και πιο (more and more), όλο + verb (keeps on, informal), πάνω απ' όλα, όλα κι όλα, είμαι όλος αυτιά.
όλος is collective, κάθε is distributive: Όλη η τάξη έφτιαξε μια αφίσα is one poster; Κάθε παιδί έφτιαξε μια αφίσα is one each.

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