kit and caboodle

kit and caboodle

English

Alternative forms

• kit and kaboodle, whole kit and caboodle

Etymology

From kit (from Middle Dutch kitte (“wooden vessel made of hooped staves”)) + boodle (from Dutch boedel (“property, moveable estate”)).

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

Noun

kit and caboodle (uncountable)

1. (US, Canada, Australia, idiomatic) Everything entirely, the whole lot.
   • 1930, Kenneth Roberts, Arundel, 1995, page 153,

     “ […] There′ll be a kit and caboodle of our people waiting to set out."

   • 1951, Holling Clancy Holling, Minn of the Mississippi, 1979, page 65,

     Aye, you could sell your kit and caboodle, and really see New Orleans!

   • 1988, Susan DeMarco, Jim Hightower, A Populist Prescription for Prosperity, Mother Jones, page 56,

     To have an economy that is sound and that works for all the people, Reagan′s entire “trickle-down” kit and caboodle must be tossed out behind him and replaced with an aggressive program of growth that “percolates up” from the grass roots.

See also

• everything but the kitchen sink
• for a list of other "whole ___" terms that mean "everything / the whole thing", see the whole nine yards

Adverb

kit and caboodle (not comparable)

1. (US) All together; as one.
   • 1954, Gordon Allport, cited in 2005, Steven J. Bartlett, The Pathology Of Man: A Study Of Human Evil, page 243,

     If I can put the Catholics into another category and reject them kit and caboodle, my life is further simplified.

   • 2000 October, Working Mother, page 132,

     Lincoln moved its corporate headquarters, kit and caboodle, from Fort Wayne, Indiana, to Philadelphia in 1998.

   • 2009, Scharlie R. Martin, Mayhem and Mischief Most Foul, page 161,

     After burying Hiram she packed them up kit and caboodle and moved them to Tuskegee, the nearest big city, so she could find work.

References

• “kit” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary, 2001–2019.