Word
be all
/ˈbiːˌɔl/
Definition
n. the most important thing or the final purpose of something. You often hear it in the phrase "the be-all and end-all" — meaning the only thing that really matters.
n. the ultimate or most essential element; the thing regarded as supremely important. Appears almost exclusively in the fixed expression "the be-all and end-all" (from Shakespeare), denoting the totality of purpose or significance.
Examples
“Money isn't the be-all of happiness.”
“For some athletes, winning a gold medal becomes the be-all of their entire career, overshadowing everything else they achieve.”
“He had warned her against treating any single relationship as the be-all and end-all of existence, yet she found herself doing exactly that.”
Examples
simple
“Money isn't the be-all of happiness.”
contextual
“For some athletes, winning a gold medal becomes the be-all of their entire career, overshadowing everything else they achieve.”
complex
“He had warned her against treating any single relationship as the be-all and end-all of existence, yet she found herself doing exactly that.”
Etymology
From the phrase "the be-all and end-all," coined by Shakespeare in Macbeth (1606): "that but this blow / Might be the be-all and the end-all here." The construction treats "be" as a noun (existence, essence) parallel to "end" (conclusion, purpose), forming a rhyming reduplication for rhetorical emphasis. The standalone "be-all" emerged later as a clipped form.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Idioms
be-all and end-all — Something considered to be of the utmost importance; something essential or ultimate.
Scan code
englishreference.com/q/be-all