totality

Etymology

It is borrowed from Medieval Latin tōtālitās (“entirety”),^[2][3][4][5] a word of the Scholastic philosophers, recorded from before 1141 in Hugh of Saint Victor and used by Albertus Magnus, Aquinas and Duns Scotus.^[2][6] It is from tōtālis (“entire, total”),^[2][4] the source of total, from Latin tōtus (“all, whole”), a word of unknown origin.^[6][7] The OED compares French totalité, recorded from the 14th century,^[2] and Etymonline allows that the English word may also have been formed from English total + -ity or modelled on the French.^[6][8] Johnson derived it from the French.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

A whole; the total number or amount: 1598, in John Florio's Italian–English dictionary A Worlde of Wordes.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

The abstract sense, the quality of being total or entire, followed before 1631, in a sermon by John Donne;^[2] Etymonline dates it to the 1620s.^[6] Johnson (1755) defined the word only as "complete sum; whole quantity".^[9] In astronomy, from 1842, totality is the complete obscuring of the sun or moon in an eclipse, or the time it lasts,^[2][6][10] first recorded in a paper by the Astronomer Royal G. B. Airy.^[2] Set phrases include in its totality and path of totality.^[3]

Timeline

• 1598 – a whole, the total number or amount.^[2][4]
• before 1631 – the quality of being total, entirety.^[2]
• 1842 – in astronomy, the total phase of an eclipse.^[2][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. The whole number or amount of something; the aggregate: the totality of the evidence.^[4][10][2]
2. The quality or state of being complete; entirety: Read the report in its totality before judging it.^[4][10][2]
3. (astronomy) The phase of an eclipse during which the eclipsed body is completely hidden, or the time this lasts.^[10][2][3]

Word family

• totalitarian

Related words

• total
• totalize

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins