The whole kit and caboodle (often spelled kit and kaboodle) means everything; the entirety of something; all associated parts, pieces, supplies, or possessions; the whole lot.
Also: The whole caboodle, the whole kit, kit and kaboodle
What Does “Caboodle” Mean? (The Fossil Word)
People frequently wonder what a caboodle is on its own. In modern English, caboodle is a fossil word, a term that has completely died out in standard speech and survives exclusively inside this single idiom (or the shortened “the whole caboodle”).
- The Root Word (“Boodle”): Caboodle developed in 19th-century American slang from boodle, which referred to an entire crowd, collection, lot of goods, or pile of money (and later, illicit political money).
- The Slang Prefix: Adding ca- or ka- was a popular 19th-century American slang habit used to create humorous, emphatic words (similar to ker-plunk, ka-boom, or absquatulate). Thus, boodle became caboodle, meaning “the whole bunch” or “the entire crowd.”
- Linguistic Redundancy: Because kit already meant a full set of equipment and caboodle meant the whole collection, putting them together is a tautology (saying the same thing twice for poetic emphasis).
“Kitten Caboodle” and Common Mishearings
Historically, a kit referred to the complete collection of tools, personal gear, and supplies carried in a designated bag or chest. While best known as a military soldier’s pack (or kit bag), the word applies across many professions, a tradesman’s tool kit, a doctor’s medical kit, or a traveling musician’s gear (often referred to alongside a “gig bag” or “drum kit”). Modern speakers are perhaps most familiar with the term “first-aid kit”. A “kit” can also refer to a set of pieces sold together to assemble something, such as a model airplane kit.
Because many modern speakers are unfamiliar with kit as a physical bag or collection of equipment, the phrase has become a classic candidate for an eggcorn (a misheard phrase that sounds logical to the listener):
- Kitten Caboodle / Cat and Caboodle: Unfamiliar with the gear term kit, listeners frequently substitute the word kitten, playfully imagining a basket or “caboodle” full of cats.
- Kit and Kaboodle (C vs. K): Both caboodle and kaboodle are recognized spellings in modern dictionaries, though caboodle is the earlier 19th-century form.
Origin & History
The expression developed across the 18th and 19th centuries as two distinct terms merged into a rhythmic alliterative pair:
The Military “Kit” (Mid-1700s)
In British military terminology dating back to the 1700s, a kit referred to the complete set of tools, uniform items, weapons, and personal necessities packed into a soldier’s bag or knapsack (which is also where we get phrases like kit bag and first-aid kit).
“Kit and Boodle” to “Kit and Caboodle” (1820s–1860s)
By the late 1820s, American vernacular combined the two words into “kit and boodle,” meaning both a person’s gear (kit) and the whole crowd/property (boodle). By the 1850s and 1860s, American print settled into the rhyming, alliterative “kit and caboodle.”
Movie and TV Citations
- “Will that be all for you, Truman?” — “That’s the whole kit and caboodle.” — The Truman Show (1998)
- “I hate to lose a good cop. Lot of good cops want to drop the whole kit and caboodle.” — Falling Down (1993)
- “I think I’ll sell the whole kit and caboodle, boy, unless I see a vast improvement.” — The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)
- “Before they went into warp, I transported the whole kit and caboodle into their engine room.” — Star Trek: The Trouble with Tribbles (1967)
Sentence Examples
- “I’m moving across the country and selling the whole kit and caboodle at a yard sale.”
- “The plumber got so fed up with the broken pipes that he packed up the whole kit and caboodle and left.”
- “We bought the bakery and took over the whole kit and caboodle, from the secret recipes to the commercial ovens.”
Similar and Related Expressions
- The Whole Shebang: Everything involved in a given system, event, or arrangement.
- Lock, Stock, and Barrel: The whole of something; completely (derived from firearm components).
- Everything But the Kitchen Sink: An excessive, overwhelming collection of items.
- The Whole Enchilada: The entire thing; the full package.