whole ball of wax
2
7.1
- idiom
- Informal
:
todo el asunto
- In discussing climate change, we must address the whole ball of wax, including energy production and consumption.
Examples
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To understand the company's challenges, we need to look at the whole ball of wax, not just the financial aspects.
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This is the whole ball of wax.
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That's the whole ball of wax.
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Maybe it's just time to pass the whole ball of wax off to newcomers.
Blog text (22) -
And unless we deal with the whole ball of wax, we're going to miss out on some critical parts and we're going to be hurting somewhere.
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This is going to be a new direction for them, a move into serious, substantial resort development, with all the responsible environmental concerns met—the whole ball of wax.
Fiction book (1998) -
When planning the event, we need to consider the whole ball of wax, from the venue to the guest list.
Synonyms
484
1.0
All of something seen as one unit
68
4.1
The whole of something that includes every part
32
6.5
All the parts of something considered together
4
6.7
All the things and people connected with something
A state of being whole and complete
All the things in a group or set
Antonyms
How Complete
Surface Forms
Morphology
Although 'whole' signals totality, the noun phrase 'ball of wax' does not transparently denote 'everything' from the literal meanings of 'ball' and 'wax'; a learner who knows the words could plausibly interpret it as a literal object rather than 'the entirety of something'. Because the expression relies on an idiomatic conventionalization where 'ball of wax' functions metaphorically, it gives a partial clue but is not fully predictable without prior exposure or cultural knowledge.
Etymology
The phrase whole ball of wax may come from a real ball of wax that makers kept for a whole job because it held all the things they needed. So, the whole ball of wax came to mean 'everything' or 'the whole thing'.