Idiom
tick all the boxes
Meaning
To fulfill all the requirements, especially as itemized in a list; to have all the needed characteristics; to complete all the steps in a process in an orderly manner.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“This new apartment ticks all the boxes for me.”
“Does this software tick all the boxes for your project?”
“The candidate was perfect for the job because she ticked all the boxes regarding experience and technical skills.”
“We decided to book the hotel because it ticks all the boxes, including a central location, a reasonable price, and a gym for our morning workouts.”
“Although the proposal initially seemed ambitious, it ultimately ticked all the boxes required by the committee to secure the necessary funding for the project.”
Examples
simple
“This new apartment ticks all the boxes for me.”
“Does this software tick all the boxes for your project?”
contextual
“The candidate was perfect for the job because she ticked all the boxes regarding experience and technical skills.”
“We decided to book the hotel because it ticks all the boxes, including a central location, a reasonable price, and a gym for our morning workouts.”
complex
“Although the proposal initially seemed ambitious, it ultimately ticked all the boxes required by the committee to secure the necessary funding for the project.”
Origin
From the late 20th century, the idiom draws upon the practice of marking a checklist with check marks to confirm that each required condition has been met. The term functions as a linguistic shortcut for the physical act of verifying an inventory, recording the completion of a sequence through a series of discrete, administrative strokes.
Key words
Related idioms
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