kit and caboodle
- idiom
- /kɪt ənd kəˈbuːdəl/
- Informal
- He decided to sell the house along with the whole kit and caboodle inside it.
- the whole kit and caboodle
This might be their, you know, kit and caboodle.
- This might be their, you know, kit and caboodle.
Examples
-
The whole kit and caboodle.
-
Too tempting for another firm to walk away with the whole kit and caboodle.
Fiction book (1997) -
If you don't want to make a lunch box, you could buy the whole kit and caboodle.
Blog text (2) -
I had to piece together the puzzle with bits of information from a variety of websites to get the whole kit and caboodle to work.
Blog text (33) -
She'd sold Marlcrest—the whole kit and caboodle—to a developer who planned to bulldoze the house, clear the land, and build a subdivision there.
Fiction book (1996) -
You can have the car, the furniture, and the whole kit and caboodle for a great price.
-
When she moved, she packed up the whole kit and caboodle into boxes.
Synonyms
Everything extra you can have, like extra burger toppings or a full spa service
All the things or people together as a group
Everything that is part of something
Everything included in a deal or plan
All the things and people connected with something
All the things you need for an activity, like tools and supplies
All the extra services and options included with a product or service
Everything included, for example all parts or options
All the things or people involved
A complete set of related things included together
All the things in a group or set
All the things and people together
Surface Forms
Morphology
Both 'kit' and 'caboodle' independently denote a set or complete collection, so the coordinated phrase 'kit and caboodle' transparently signals 'the whole lot' for someone who knows those words. This kind of paired-synonym construction to indicate entirety is cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner familiar with the constituents can reasonably infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
The phrase kit and caboodle may come from old words for a person's tools and the whole bundle of their things. Imagine a soldier carrying his kit, his gear, and his full caboodle, the whole bundle, so the phrase came to mean 'everything'.