All means ‘every one’, ‘the complete number or amount’ or ‘the whole’. We use it most often as a determiner. We can use a countable noun or an uncountable noun after it: … When all refers to a whole class of people or things, we don’t use the: …
When you talk about all of one thing, you mean the whole thing. When Shakespeare writes, in As You Like It, “ All the world's a stage,” he means the whole world.
You use all to refer to a situation or to life in general. All is silent on the island now. As you'll have read in our news pages, all has not been well of late.
the whole of (used in referring to quantity, extent, or duration): all the cake; all the way; all year. the whole number of (used in referring to individuals or particulars, taken collectively): all students.
Some common synonyms of all are entire, total, and whole. While all these words mean "including everything or everyone without exception," all may equal whole, entire, or total.
