Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

whole shebang

Word Rarity Very rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.36 in modern English

Syllables: whole she-bang
IPA

24

Scrabble Score

12

Letters

2

Syllables

10

Unique Chars

Meaning

noun

Everything; the entire thing.

Informal

Example Sentences

"The festival had balloons, flowers, fireworks, performers, and the whole shebang."
"On the third the whole "chebang" was removed [...]"
"I am growing more and more sick of factions, gossip, jealousies, recriminations, excoriations and the whole literary shee-bang."
"2002, Treasure Planet, directed by Ron Clements and John Musker Doctor, I'd love to chat. Tea, cake, the whole shebang. But I've got a ship to launch and you've got your outfit to buff up."
"“Food here's pretty good. They don't serve bog juice. Real tea and real coffee. Ice cream, pop, chips. The whole shebang. Every day's a wingding, brother.”"
"Of course, they would win the whole shebang in 1974, when “Waterloo” [won] (sung in English by Swedes about a Frenchman in Belgium— how much more international can one song get?), but the bitter taste of past failures is not something one forgets..."

Etymology

Fixed expression from shebang, first attested in the United States from the early 1860s, from which time it has increasingly dominated the uses of "shebang" itself.

Usage

Informal

Inflected Forms

whole shebangs (plural) whole chebang (alternative) whole shabang (alternative)

Synonyms

all the marbles bag and baggage everytang everything but the galley stove everything but the kitchen sink everything under the sun full monty hook line and sinker kit and caboodle lock stock and barrel

Questions

What does whole shebang mean?: Everything; the entire thing.
Where does whole shebang come from?: Fixed expression from shebang, first attested in the United States from the early 1860s, from which time it has increasingly dominated the uses of "shebang" itself.

How to pronounce whole shebang

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