Meanings
alternative full on
- All-out; out and out; complete; utter.
This was a full-on jungle, full of all kinds of creepy things - snakes, spiders. They expected Tarzan to come swinging by on a vine.
1966, Bruce Brown, director, The Endless Summer2 more examples
It only takes a little tweaking for the Simpsons’ home to become a full-on freak show, with Homer as its perpetually apoplectic main attraction.
2012 May 20, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “Marge Gets A Job” (season 4, episode 7; originally aired 11/05/1992)”, in The Onion AV Club, archived from the original on 26 May 2012"Seven years," he confirms. "Nobody else has done more than four. The job has been wonderfully rewarding, but very full-on. There hasn't been a lot of time in my life for normal things. I needed to find a better balance." Unprompted, he dives straight into the obvious question: having told everyone he intended to be the last chief executive of Network Rail, why the change of heart?
2025 September 17, Paul Clifton, “"You don't get the luxury of self-pity in this job, because the machine is continuing to churn problems at me" says Sir Andrew Haines”, in RAIL, number 1044, page 28
Synonyms & antonyms
Origin
- Englishfull-
- Proto-Indo-European*h₂en-
- Proto-Germanic*an
- Proto-West Germanic*ana
- Old Englishon
- Middle Englishon
- Englishon
- Englishfull-on
From full- (“fully, completely”) + on.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
full-on. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/full-on
“full-on.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/full-on. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “full-on,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/full-on.
Source: full-on on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.