Lexicon: The whole kit and kaboodle
My dear friend Bishwas taught me once a very good locution: The whole kit and kaboodle.
I wanted to use it today, but forgot how to spell it. So here is a short page with its etymology, just in case you need to use it as well. It is a very nice idiom!
"Kit and caboodle" (which is the most common form) dates back to the mid-eighteenth century and appeared first in England. There are a number of variants, including "kit and kerboodle" and "kit and boodle." The "kit" part of the phrase is of fairly straightforward origin, "kit" being an 18th century English slang term for "outfit" or "collection," as in a soldier's "kit bag," which contained all his worldly possessions. "Kit" may have come from "kith," meaning "estate," found today in the phrase "kith and kin." "Caboodle" is a tougher nut to crack. As usual, there are a number of theories, the most likely of which traces "boodle" back to the Dutch word "boedel," meaning "property." Lawyers take note: "boodle" actually was a respectable word in its own right (meaning "estate") in the 17th and 18th centuries, and was even used in legal documents. But why "caboodle" or "kerboodle"? The "ca" and "ker" may be related to the intensive German prefix "ge," giving the sense "the whole boodle." Put it all together and you get "kit and caboodle," meaning "everything and all of everything," down to the last kitten. [Source and copyright: phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board]