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What is "Kit and Caboodle"?

What does it mean and where did it come from?

7 Answers

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  • Jess
    Lv 5
    1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    It means "EVERYTHING." Or, "everything you might need and then some." It is usually used when you want to pack some things up or take some things with you and you can't decide what to leave behind, so you say, "We'll take the whole kit and caboodle."

    Check out this page for historical information.

    http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=1...

  • 1 decade ago

    {A collection of things}The words kit and caboodle have rather similar meanings.

    A kit - is set of objects, as in a toolkit, or what a soldier would put in his kit-bag.

    A caboodle (or boodle) - is an archaic term meaning group or collection, usually of people.

    There are several phrases similar to the whole kit and caboodle, which is first recorded in that form in 1884. Most of them are of US origin and all the early citations are American. Caboodle was never in common use outside the USA and now has died out everywhere, apart from its use in this phrase.

  • Sue F
    Lv 7
    1 decade ago

    Kit means all of your belongings originated in the 1700's, Caboodle means the same but is from the 1840's. Have a good night.

  • 1 decade ago

    Not sure where it came from but, it means everything. Like throw the whole kit and cabooble in the trash. We are going to move the whole kit and caboodle.

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  • 1 decade ago

    Everything....Here is what I found:

    Well, a "kit" is package or group going back to Middle English (1300s), and from the early/mid-1800s, a "boodle" is likewise a lot of people (from the Dutch, bœdel, meaning "estate" or "lot"). The prefix "ca" is an intensifier, and "caboodle" is an English word in its own right. They probably got joined-up into a cliché during the Civil War, just because the time's about right and a bunch of stuff came from then.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    They brought their kids, their furniture, their boat...the whole kit and caboodle.

    It means everything, or every single thing, or every damned thing, or they brought it all.

    I don't know the origin of the expression.

  • It's an expression. Meaning everything.

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