the.com/whole kit and caboodle
The whole kit and caboodle: when 'everything' alone just isn't dramatic enough.
means Everything, the whole lot, with nothing left out or behind.
from It's a doubled-up phrase built for emphasis. 'Kit' goes back to a soldier's or workman's kit — the collected gear and tools of one's trade. 'Caboodle' is the fuzzier piece: likely from 'boodle,' meaning a lot or collection (as in 'the whole boodle'), possibly tangled up with Dutch 'boedel,' meaning property or household goods. Someone stitched 'kit' and 'caboodle' together into one emphatic phrase, letting the near-rhyme do the work — repetition for rhythm's sake, the same instinct behind 'hustle and bustle' or 'nitty gritty.'
- caboodle origin
- From boodle, meaning a whole lot or crowd
- redundancy
- Kit and caboodle basically both mean collection
- no solo caboodle
- Caboodle rarely appears without kit attached
- 19th century slang
- Popularized in American English around the 1800s