
The whole shebang
Meanings
Slang. All of it; the whole thing
Examples






Origin
This problem with this expression is to find out what a shebang is. In November 1869, the Marysville Tribune printed a list of The Idioms of Our New West where it reads that "shebang is applied to any sort of house or office." In June 1872, the Sedalia Daily Democrat printed a piece which used the name just to mean 'thing', and this is the earliest example of 'the whole shebang': "Well, the Democracy can flax [beat up] the whole shebang, and we hope to see our party united." Thus, shebang became simply a colorful way of saying 'thing'