Link Centre Dictionary

holey

ho·ley

UK/ˈhəʊl.li/ US/ˈhɒʊli/ uncommon

adjective

1.

allowing passage in and out

  • “our unfenced and largely unpoliced border inevitably has been very porous”
Synonyms
Similar

Origin

From Middle English holy, holi, holly, holli (“holey, spongy, hollow”); equivalent to hole + -y. The e was inserted in Modern English to distinguish the word from holy (“hallowed, sacred”).

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.