כל: All, Every, Whole | Hebrew Grammar

English needs three different words here — every, all the, the whole. Hebrew needs one, כל, and it never inflects for anything: no gender, no number, no article of its own. What does all the work is the article on the word after it, which means the entire system reduces to a single question you ask about the second word, not the first.

The article on the next word decides

Indefinite → every	Definite → all the, the whole
כל יום — kol yom, every day	כל היום — kol hayóm, all day, the whole day
כל שבוע — kol shavúa, every week	כל השבוע — kol hashavúa, all week
כל ילד — kol yéled, every child	כל הילדים — kol hayeladím, all the children
כל ספר — kol séfer, every book	כל הספרים — kol hasfarím, all the books
כל פעם — kol pá'am, every time	כל העולם — kol ha'olám, the whole world

Nothing in the left-hand column differs from the right except one ה. There is no irregular list and no agreement to get wrong here: decide whether you mean each one separately or the lot of it, mark the noun accordingly, and כל comes along unchanged. Two things later on this page do turn on register — the spelling כל / הכול, and one extra reading under a negation — but neither of them touches this contrast.

כל יום אני שותה קפה במקום אחר.

kol yom aní shoté kafé bemakóm akhér

Every day I have coffee somewhere different. (m. speaker)

ישבנו שם כל היום ולא עשינו כלום.

yashávnu sham kol hayóm veló asínu klum

We sat there all day and did nothing.

What follows from that: number, and the verb

The two readings pull the rest of the clause in opposite directions, which is where the error shows even when the article is right. Every distributes over individuals, so its noun is singular and so is the verb; all the gathers them into a group, so its noun is plural and so is the verb.

כל ילד מקבל מתנה בסוף השנה.

kol yéled mekabél mataná besóf hashaná

Every child gets a present at the end of the year. (singular noun, singular verb — and a singular gift each)

כל הילדים קיבלו מתנות בסוף השנה.

kol hayeladím kiblú matanót besóf hashaná

All the children got presents at the end of the year. (plural noun, plural verb)

💡

English blurs this, because everybody knows takes a singular verb while all the people know takes a plural one and nobody thinks about it. In Hebrew the same split exists and is visible in the writing, so it is worth building the habit deliberately: look at the noun after כל and let the verb copy it.

כל הימים is not "every day"

Now the mismatch that catches everyone, and it is not a grammar error — both strings are perfectly good Hebrew. כל הימים means all the days, and modern Hebrew uses it for a stretch of time taken as a whole. Choose it for every day and you have written a correct sentence that says something else.

Hebrew	Reads	Means
כל יום	kol yom	every day — one instance after another
כל היום	kol hayóm	all day — one stretch, today
כל הימים	kol hayamím	all the days — the whole span of them

חיכינו לתשובה כל הימים האלה ולא קיבלנו כלום.

khikínu litshuvá kol hayamím ha'éle veló kibálnu klum

We waited for an answer all these days and got nothing. (כל הימים is a span, not a repetition)

הכול, standing on its own

Take away the noun and the word changes shape. Free-standing it is הכול hakól, "everything" — and, as the Academy of the Hebrew Language notes, "everyone" as well: הכול יודעים, "everybody knows".

הכול בסדר? לא ענית לי כל הבוקר.

hakól beséder? lo aníta li kol habóker

Is everything all right? You haven't answered me all morning. (to a man — both jobs of the word in one sentence)

לחם, חלב וביצים, זה הכול.

lékhem, khaláv uveitsím, ze hakól

Bread, milk and eggs — that's everything.

כולם באו חוץ ממנו.

kulám bá'u khuts miménu

Everyone came except him. (כולם is 'all of them' — הכול would be the impersonal 'everyone', as in הכול יודעים)

Why the two spellings

The Academy's answer כל או כול? (published 10 June 2018, retrieved from a Wayback snapshot of 5 December 2025) gives the rule and, more usefully, the reason. Standing alone the word takes a vav — the usual giveaway being that it carries the article, הכול — and bound to what follows it takes none. The reason is the vowel: standing alone the word carries a cholam, כֹּל, which the Academy classes as a long vowel; bound, it shortens to a kamatz katan, כׇּל. Plene spelling writes the long vowel with a vav and the short one with nothing. Note which spelling the classical pointing uses: it writes that long vowel with the cholam sign alone, הַכֹּל, and the vav in today's unpointed הכול is plene spelling doing the same job in its place — which is why a modern pointed text writes it back in, הַכּוֹל.

Position	Written today	Classical pointing
standing alone	הכול · כול	הַכֹּל — cholam, a long vowel
bound to the next word	כל	כׇּל־ — kamatz katan, joined by maqaf

That shortening is the classical maqaf at work — two words fused into one stress unit, the first one's vowel giving way — and the mechanism is on the maqaf. The Academy also supplies a test that needs no niqqud at all: in the bound phrases you cannot add the article to כל itself. There is no *הכל הילדים.

Standing-alone כול also appears without the article, in a small set of fixed expressions the Academy lists: קודם כול "first of all", כול יכול "almighty", מכול וכול "utterly".

And now the honest part. The shorter spelling הכל is extremely common in practice, edited writing included. Counting Hebrew Wikipedia with an insource:/…/ regex search on 16 August 2026 across three fixed phrases — הכל בסדר 177 against הכול בסדר 49, זה הכל 201 against זה הכול 98, הכל טוב 126 against הכול טוב 51 — the short form leads by roughly 2.5 to 3 : 1. (The two-figure counts reproduce exactly; the three-figure ones move by a few dozen from run to run, which is why the ratio is the claim and the digits are not.) Write הכול, which is the standard and what a teacher expects; read הכל as a spelling variant, not as an error to correct in somebody else's text.

The inflected forms

Attach a possessive suffix and כל becomes "all of —".

Form	Reads	Means
כּוּלּוֹ	kuló	all of it (m.), the whole of him
כּוּלָּהּ	kulá	all of it (f.)
כּוּלָּם	kulám	all of them (m.), everyone
כּוּלָּן	kulán	all of them (f.)
כּוּלָּנוּ	kulánu	all of us
כּוּלְּכֶם	kulkhém	all of you (m. pl.)

Unlike the bound כל, these all keep the vav in ktiv male, because the vowel is a full shuruk: כולו, כולם, כולנו.

The phrases worth learning whole

Phrase	Reads	Means
כל הזמן	kol hazmán	all the time, constantly
כל כך	kol kakh	so, so very
כל אחד · כל אחת	kol ekhád · kol akhát	each one, everyone
כל מיני	kol minéi	all sorts of
בכל אופן · בכל מקרה	bekhól ófen · bekhól mikré	in any case, anyway
כל עוד	kol od	as long as

הטלפון שלי מתנתק כל הזמן, אני אתקשר מהבית.

hatélefon shelí mitnaték kol hazmán, aní etkashér mehabáyit

My phone keeps cutting out — I'll ring from home.

כל אחד משלם על עצמו, בסדר?

kol ekhád meshalém al atsmó, beséder?

Everyone pays for themselves, all right? (literally 'each one' — hence the singular verb)

כל עוד לא חתמנו, אפשר עוד לבטל.

kol od lo khatámnu, efshár od levatél

As long as we haven't signed, we can still cancel.

היו שם כל מיני אנשים שלא הכרתי.

hayú sham kol minéi anashím sheló hikárti

There were all sorts of people there I didn't know.

Under a negation: "any at all"

There is one more reading, and it belongs to a formal register. כל plus a bare indefinite noun inside a negative clause does not mean every — it means English any … at all, and it strengthens the negation rather than counting anything.

אין לי כל ספק שהוא צודק.

ein li kol safék shehú tsodék

I have no doubt at all that he's right. (formal — in speech, אין לי שום ספק)

אין בכך כל בעיה מבחינתנו.

ein bekhákh kol be'ayá mibkhinaténu

That is no problem at all as far as we are concerned. (formal — a letter or an official reply)

The words that carry this job in everyday speech — שום, אף, כלום — are on negative determiners.

Common Mistakes

1. Using כל + definite for "every". The article gets added because English every day feels definite, and the sentence stays grammatical while meaning something else.

❌ אני הולך לים כל היום בקיץ

I go to the sea every day in summer

Incorrect as 'every day' — כל היום is 'all day'. Every day is כל יום, with no article on the noun.

✅ אני הולך לים כל יום בקיץ, גם כשקר.

aní holékh layám kol yom bakáyits, gam kshekár

I go to the sea every day in summer, even when it's cold. (m. speaker)

2. Leaving the verb singular after כל + a plural noun. כל looks like the head of the phrase, so it looks like what the verb should agree with. It is not; the noun is.

❌ כל הילדים מקבל מתנה

Incorrect — כל הילדים is plural, so the verb and the object follow it: כל הילדים מקבלים מתנות. Only כל ילד takes a singular verb.

✅ כל השכנים ידעו על זה חוץ מאיתנו.

kol hashkhením yad'ú al ze khuts me'itánu

All the neighbours knew about it except us.

3. Writing the bound form with a vav. You learn הכול first, and the vav then travels onto the bound form where it does not belong.

❌ כול הילדים

Incorrect as a spelling — bound to a following word the vowel shortens and the vav goes: כל הילדים. The vav belongs only to the free-standing word, הכול.

✅ כל הכיתה נשארה אחרי הצלצול.

kol hakitá nish'ará akharéi hatsiltsúl

The whole class stayed behind after the bell. (כיתה is a collective and singular, so the verb is singular too)

4. Reading the negative כל as "all". A comprehension error, and the sentence it produces is close enough to sensible that nothing flags it.

❌ אין לי כל ספק

I do not have all the doubt

Incorrect as a reading — under a negation, כל plus a bare noun is English 'any at all'. This is 'I have no doubt whatsoever', and it is a stronger statement than אין לי ספק, not a weaker one.

✅ אין כל סיבה לדחות את הפגישה.

ein kol sibá lidkhót et hapgishá

There is no reason whatsoever to postpone the meeting. (formal)

Key Takeaways

כל never changes. The article on the next word decides the meaning: כל יום "every day", כל היום "all day".
Indefinite → every, and the noun and verb are singular: כל ילד מקבל. Definite → all the / the whole, and both are plural: כל הילדים מקבלים.
כל הימים is not "every day" — it is "all the days", a span rather than a repetition. The error is a choice of meaning, not a grammatical one.
Free-standing, the word is הכול "everything, everyone". The Academy's rule: vav when it stands alone, no vav when it is bound — because the vowel shortens to a kamatz katan under the maqaf.
הכל is extremely common anyway — it outruns הכול by about 2.5 to 3 : 1 across three fixed phrases on Hebrew Wikipedia. Write הכול; do not treat הכל as an error in other people's text.
The inflected forms keep the vav: כולו, כולה, כולם, כולן, כולנו, כולכם.
Under a negation, כל + a bare noun is "any at all" and belongs to a formal register: אין לי כל ספק. Everyday Hebrew uses שום and אף.

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