wholy -> holey? Definitely not wholy. That's partly wholly. Wholly is derived from whole (all/everything/complete) and not relating to a hole. This is an ad

wholy -> holey? Definitely not wholy. That's partly wholly. Wholly is derived from whole (all/everything/complete) and not relating to a hole. This is an adjective derived from a noun, so hole -> holey. It could be hole + ly -> holely but it isn't. Now, we have the word pinned down. How on earth do you pronounce the bloody thing? For me (en_GB): hole-ee. The dash "-" is not a pause, I would run the word hole straight into the ee sound. The ee phoneme is quite short.