all hands
46
3.2
- noun
:
todo el personal
- All hands on deck!
- all hands on deck
- an all-hands meeting
- an all-hands call
We need all hands on deck, and we need all hands on deck.
- We need all hands on deck, and we need all hands on deck.
- But you've got to really, you know, bring your A game and be all hands on deck when things get tough.
- I mean, I guess we could work on the walls, but I want this to be a all hands on deck.
Examples
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All hands on deck.
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"To resolve the fiscal cliff requires all hands on deck, and the deadline is rapidly approaching," she wrote in a commentary.
Blog text (10) -
But for the moment, it's all hands on deck and none below.
Blog text (15) -
And we will need all hands on deck to get it done.
Blog text (9) -
One would think we still need all hands on deck.
Blog text (26) -
So all hands on deck; anyone who wants can help anyway they can.
Blog text (2) -
Our voyage continues and it's all hands on deck.
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It will take a united effort to win this, so all hands on deck!
Blog text (25) -
And it's through an all hands on deck philosophy that we believe we can achieve these breakthroughs.
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In an emergency, we need all hands to help evacuate the building.
How Many
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly and compositionally derived from 'all' (the whole group) + 'hands' (workers/laborers): together they denote all people available to help. 'Hands' is a common metonymy for workers and the quantifier+noun pattern is cross-linguistically regular, so a B1 learner who knows both words will readily infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
All hands comes from old sailing ships where the crew were called hands because they worked with their hands. When a captain shouted for all hands to come on deck to help, he meant every person, so today it means 'everyone available to help'.