1. whole cloth - Noun
2. whole cloth - Adverb
A newly made textile which has not yet been cut.
(uncountable, figuratively, used attributively or preceded by various prepositions) The fictitious material from which complete fabrications, lies with no basis in truth, are made.
Mr. Doe's account of the accident was made from whole cloth.
(uncountable) Something made completely new, with no history, and not based on anything else.
The plans for the widget were drawn from whole cloth.
whole cloth (not comparable)
(idiomatic) in full extent, wholesale, entirely, without changes or additions
He had been bored, that's all, bored like most people. Hence he had made himself out of whole cloth a life full of complications and drama. Something must happen - and that explains most human commitments. Something must happen, even loveless slavery, even war or death. Hurray then for funerals! Albert Camus
Sadness does not inhere in things; it does not reach us from the world and through mere contemplation of the world. It is a product of our own thought. We create it out of whole cloth. Émile Durkheim
No one sits in front of a drum set and thinks they invented it all out of whole cloth. The fact that the set is there means that you've got some dues to pay to Baby Dodds. John Zorn
Truman Capote famously claimed to have nearly absolute recall of dialogue and used his prodigious memory as an excuse never to take notes or use a tape recorder, but I suspect his memory claims were just a useful cover to invent dialogue whole cloth. Joshua Foer
It is easier to manufacture seven facts out of whole cloth than one emotion. Mark Twain