Learn English – Is the word “all” singular or plural

subject-verb-agreement

For example, is the following sentence correct?

All is well!

If it is correct, then it means that "all" is singular.

Then how come the phrase

All hail Caesar

is used because it suggests that "all" is plural that's why it takes hail and not hails.

Best Answer

I had originally provided a comment to an answer (which is now deleted) saying that all can be either singular or plural. But that's not really correct. As a comment, I didn't have space to explain it properly.

All is used along with a subject that is either singular or plural.

I ate (all / most / some / part) of the cake.

Sometimes, all is used in a sentence with a subject that's considered singular, and sometimes in a sentence with a subject that's considered plural.

That is all.
All of the cars are white.

According to Merriam-Webster, all can be an adjective, adverb, or pronoun, and it can be used in sentences that involve singular nouns or plural nouns.

It can also be a noun itself. When it is, it's considered to be singular.


Whether it's used in a sentence with a singular subject or a plural subject is contextual.

All is well.

Here, it's used in a singular construction. It's being used in the same sense as everything would be:

Everything is well.

On the other hand, this would also be acceptable, if not common:

All (of them) are well.

In this case (assuming of them is not actually present in the sentence), all is being used as a pronoun in place of something like:

Things are well.
People are well.

Or, depending on how you look at it, it's not a pronoun but an adjective for something that simply isn't present:

All things are well.
All people are well.


All hail Caesar!

The verb form really has nothing to do with a singular or plural subject in this sentence.

What this sentence is actually saying is:

All (of you should / must) hail Caesar!

While the sentence is implicitly talking about the plural you, hail is the conjugation used for both the singular and plural form of you.

Related Topic