Meanings
alternative the full nine yards · alternative the whole nine miles
- All the way; with everything done completely or thoroughly.
WWE went the whole nine yards, from making Tshirts with the slogan to having announcers mention his new handle approximately every four seconds anytime he was on-screen.
2007, R. D. Reynolds, The Wrestlecrap Book of Lists!, page 182 more examples
Would they want me to vote my conscience or would they want us to unanimously go the whole nine yards, declare him sane and possibly have the trial end up in a death sentence?
2007, Thomas Mchenry, Along the Rails: A Juror's Journey, page 85Colleen had gone the whole nine yards, dressing up as a fortune teller, complete with huge gold earrings and a headscarf, which she'd plucked from her normal accessory box, she told Bronte.
2012, Susan Stephens, Working with the Enemy, page 164
alternative the full nine yards · alternative the whole nine miles
- Andeverything; often used, like etc., to finish out a list.
"I had a good job, a nice little house, the whole nine yards," she said.
2002, Mary Losure, Our Way Or the Highway: Inside the Minnehaha Free State, page 1613 more examples
While there Roscoe went fishing and has a big story to tell, but we refuse to stand while he unloads. He will catch some unsuspecting individual some of these days and give him the whole nine yards.
1908 June 4, The Mitchell Commercial, Lawrence County, Indiana, retrieved 14 Aug 2018, page 3, col.5No, to her credit she kept right on going the whole time, telling me how she was from Mongolia, how she was an art student, how she was having an exhibition — the whole nine yards.
2009, Jason Barbacovi, Me and Chairman Mao, page 101Mario asked me to explain to him the whole nine yards so I decided to start off on a good note.
2009, Reynaldo Laureano, Politics Vs. Prejudice in the Highway Patrol, page 46Synonyms: all the marbles, bag and baggage, everytang, everything but the galley stove, everything but the kitchen sink, everything under the sun, full monty, hook
Synonyms & antonyms
nouneverything; often used, like etc., to finish out a list.
Origin
Dave Wilton summarises the findings of Bonnie Taylor-Blake and others: :The phrase doesn’t have one particular origin, nor does it represent one particular metaphor. Instead, it seems to have evolved from a sense of yard meaning a vague quantity of something. Later, the words full or whole were attached to it, and even later it was quantified by the numbers six and nine, with the whole nine yards eventually winning out and becoming the canonical form. Use of the full phrase was for a long time restricted to the American Midwest, in particular to the region around the Kentucky–Indiana border, before breaking out into general American parlance in the middle of the twentieth century. … :So regardless of what someone else has told you, the whole nine yards does not refer to the length of a belt of WWII machine-gun ammunition, the amount of material needed to make a Scottish kilt or a sari, the number of spars on a sailing ship, the amount of concrete a cement mixer holds, or anything else.
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Dutch hottentottententententoonstelling
- hottentottententententoonstelling(And) everything
Finnish koko hoito, koko potti
- koko hoito(And) everything
- koko potti(And) everything
- helahoito(And) everything
German das volle Programm
- das volle Programm(And) everything
Hungarian minden
- minden(And) everything
Spanish y toda la pesca
- y toda la pesca(And) everything
Cite this entry
the whole nine yards. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/the%20whole%20nine%20yards
“the whole nine yards.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/the%20whole%20nine%20yards. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “the whole nine yards,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/the%20whole%20nine%20yards.
Source: the whole nine yards on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.