Liberal Dictionary English Dictionary
adverb
- wholly; entirely; completely; quite: altogether fitting.
- with all or everything included: The debt amounted altogether to twenty dollars.
- with everything considered; on the whole: Altogether, I’m glad it’s over.
- in the altogether, Informal. nude: When the phone rang she had just stepped out of the bathtub and was in the altogether.
adverb
- with everything includedaltogether he owed me sixty pounds
- completely; utterly; totallyhe was altogether mad
- on the wholealtogether it was a very good party
noun
- in the altogether informal naked
early 13c., altogedere, a strengthened form of all (also see together); used in the sense of “a whole” from 1660s. The altogether “nude” is from 1894.
Also, in or stripped to the buff; in the raw. Naked, nude, as in The art class wanted a model to pose in the altogether, or She was stripped to the buff when the doorbell rang, or He always sleeps in the raw. The first of these colloquial terms dates from the late 1800s. In the buff, a seemingly modern locution dates from the 1600s, buff alluding to a soft, undyed leather, buffskin, that also gave its name to the color. The use of raw, presumably also alluding to raw (undressed) leather, dates from the early 1900s.