go the whole hog

English

Etymology

Likely a folk term from the practice of livestock and butchery; “whole hog” or (“snout to tail”) refers to letting no portion of the animal carcass go to waste. For example, skin is tanned for leather, sweetbreads are harvested, and commonly cast off pieces such as hooves are pickled.

The term was likely first recorded in Cowper’s poem “The love of the world reproved” (1779), a poem teasing Muslims about suggested ambiguity over their religious prohibition on eating pork. By 1830 the phrase had become popular across America, being used in newspapers and political campaigns. At this time it migrated across to Britain, where the phrase was adopted.

Pronunciation

Audio (AU) (file)

Verb

go the whole hog (third-person singular simple present goes the whole hog, present participle going the whole hog, simple past went the whole hog, past participle gone the whole hog)

(chiefly UK) To do something as entirely or completely as possible; to reserve or hold back nothing.
If you can afford a new computer, you might as well go the whole hog and get it custom built.
- 1922, C. K. Scott Moncrieff, transl., Swann's Way (In Search of Lost Time)‎, translation of Du Côté de Chez Swann by Marcel Proust:
  "Just for a moment. We had a glimpse of a Swann tremendously agitated. In a state of nerves. You see, Odette had left." "You mean to say that she has gone the 'whole hog' with him; that she has 'burned her boats'?" inquired the Doctor cautiously, testing the meaning of his phrases.
- 2022 October 14, Tom McTague, “The Liz Truss Travesty Becomes Britain’s Humiliation”, in The Atlantic‎:
  And then, today, she went the whole hog, sacking her chancellor and abandoning even more of her plan.

Alternative forms

go whole hog (chiefly US)

Synonyms

(to do something unreservedly): go all out, pull out all the stops