whole shooting match
1
7.7
- noun
- Informal
:
todo
- The entire project, from planning to execution, was the whole shooting match that we worked on for months.
That's the whole shooting match now.
- That's the whole shooting match now.
- Private jets everywhere, helicopters, bolts, the whole shooting match, How many security was protecting that family?
Examples
-
I was working on the line at American Battery until they up and moved the whole shooting match to Dallas with one week's warning.
Fiction book (1993) -
That's the whole shooting match now.
-
I'm considering dumping the whole shooting match unless I see some vast improvement!
Fiction book (1994) -
Private jets everywhere, helicopters, bolts, the whole shooting match, How many security was protecting that family?
-
Mr. Gates, the NSA expects your research, your equipment, the whole shooting match crated and ready for pickup on Monday.
-
When they moved offices, they took the whole shooting match, including furniture and equipment.
-
For the charity event, we donated the whole shooting match: all the food, drinks, and decorations.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
All the things or all that someone has
484
1.0
All of something seen as one unit
4
7.0
Everything included in a deal or plan
All the things in a group or set
How Complete
Surface Forms
Morphology
Although 'whole' signals totality, the combination 'shooting match' does not transparently convey 'everything' and the overall idiom 'the whole shooting match' is an established colloquial expression whose sense of 'the entirety of something' cannot be predicted from the literal meanings of 'shooting' and 'match'. A B1 learner who knows the individual words would very likely not infer the idiomatic meaning without prior exposure or explanation.
Etymology
The idiom whole shooting match may come from old shooting contests called a shooting match, where the entire event, with all the guns, prizes and people, was included. So the phrase came to mean 'everything'.