Idiom
go the whole hog
Meaning
To do something as completely or entirely as possible; to hold back or reserve nothing.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“If you renovate the kitchen, you should go the whole hog.”
“Instead of just painting the walls, they decided to go the whole hog and replace all the furniture.”
“Rather than implementing a partial solution, the committee chose to go the whole hog and overhaul the entire organizational structure to ensure long-term success.”
Examples
simple
“If you renovate the kitchen, you should go the whole hog.”
contextual
“Instead of just painting the walls, they decided to go the whole hog and replace all the furniture.”
complex
“Rather than implementing a partial solution, the committee chose to go the whole hog and overhaul the entire organizational structure to ensure long-term success.”
Origin
Origin uncertain; the following etymologies have been suggested: * A reference to using the whole of a hog’s carcass for food, leather, etc., without wasting any part; or specifically to a poem by the English poet William Cowper (1731–1800), “The Love of the World Reproved” (published 1782) in which uncertainty among Muslims about which parts of a hog are permitted as food leads to the whole animal being eaten. * A reference to hog (“(Ireland, New Zealand, UK, historical, slang) shilling; (US, obsolete, rare) ten-cent coin, dime”), possibly in the context of spending the entire sum of money.
Key words
Related idioms
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