# Origin of the phrase "whole cloth' not what I thought it was

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-phrase-whole-cloth-not-what-i-thought-it-was/378565>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [October 31, 2006, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-phrase-whole-cloth-not-what-i-thought-it-was/378565 "2006-10-31T13:17:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\
**Post date:** [October 31, 2006, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-phrase-whole-cloth-not-what-i-thought-it-was/378565/1 "2006-10-31T13:17:31Z")

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I always thought it was a pun with archaic spelling ie whole cloth = “hole cloth” or cloth made of holes.

[Whole cloth](http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-who1.htm)

> [@](#):
>
> Literally, the phrase refers to a complete piece of cloth as it is first made, as opposed to one which has been cut up to make garments. It goes back at least to the fifteenth century in that sense. Down the years, it has been used in a variety of figurative senses, but in the early nineteenth century it began to be employed in the US in the way that we now know, of something that is wholly fabricated or a complete lie. The implication seems to be that a thing made from whole cloth has no previous history or associations, that it is created from a blank sheet in the same way that a total lie is invented.

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**Author:** ![Mindfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mindfield/32/19759_2.png) [@Mindfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mindfield)\
**Post date:** [October 31, 2006, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-phrase-whole-cloth-not-what-i-thought-it-was/378565/2 "2006-10-31T13:30:10Z")

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I’d never even considered the possibility that it was a play on words – but then I hadn’t thought about it in archaic terms. I just assumed it meant pretty much what it said: Something wholly constructed rather than natural (real).

Before the Dope however, I was guilty of constantly misusing “begs the question” however.

Call me geeky, but I love etymology for some reason.

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**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\
**Post date:** [October 31, 2006, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-phrase-whole-cloth-not-what-i-thought-it-was/378565/3 "2006-10-31T15:51:06Z")

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[QUOTE=Mindfield]  
.  
Call me geeky, but I love etymology for some reason.  
[/QUOTE]  
Oh, yeh! It’s amazing how many bizarre shapes they can take, or what incredible colors and patterns some of them have on their wings, huh? The ones that camouflage themselves to look like a stick or bark, they just blow me away, it’s

What?  
Oh. Never mind.