English Explanatory Dictionary

lock, stock and barrel

English dictionary entry

Meanings

adv
  1. Entirely, completely.
noun
  1. The entirety of a thing, with nothing omitted.

Word forms

lock, stock and barrel

Etymology

From the three principal parts of a flintlock. The explanation that it refers to all of a shopkeeper’s possessions—the lock to the door, the stock in trade and the items stored in barrels—is fanciful. First attested in an 1817 letter by the Scottish novelist Walter Scott (see quotation).

Synonyms

absolutely all-out tout à fait all the way blind altogether at large at length cap-a-pie categorically completely detailly downright entirely exhaustively finally first and last flat-out flat out from aardvark to zymurgy from A to Z from head to toe from soup to nuts from stem to stern from the rooter to the tooter from top to bottom from top to toe fully handsomely heartily head to foot head to tail head to toe hook line and sinker in detail in full lock stock and barrel one hundred percent out-and-out out and out outright particularly perfectly plumb properly purely quite right root and branch soundly soup-to-nuts straight up through and through top to tail top to toe totally

Related words

bag and baggage everything but the kitchen sink flash in the pan full monty go off half-cocked hook, line and sinker the whole nine yards whole shebang
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