whole kit and caboodle, the

the whole kit and caboodle

All the parts of a group of things. I had a collection I'd been putting together for nearly 25 years, and burglars stole the whole kit and caboodle. John has some awesome camping gear, and he let us borrow the whole kit and caboodle for the weekend.See also: and, caboodle, kit, whole

whole kit and caboodle, the

Everything, every part, as in He packed up all his gear, the whole kit and caboodle, and walked out. This expression is a redundancy, for kit has meant "a collection or group" since the mid-1700s (though this meaning survives only in the full idiom today), and caboodle has been used with the same meaning since the 1840s. In fact caboodle is thought to be a corruption of the phrase kit and boodle, another redundant phrase, since boodle also meant "a collection." See also: and, kit, whole