Etymology Journal ยท E
Everything but the kitchen sink
Meaning
- An enormous amount of items or an excessive variety of things included in a collection or bag. It implies overkill.
Humorous, hyperbolic
Used in a sentence
- She packed everything but the kitchen sink for a three-day weekend.
- They threw everything but the kitchen sink at the project to make it succeed.
- His suitcase contained everything but the kitchen sink.
The backstory
Dating back to the early 20th century, the phrase suggests that a person has packed so much that they literally included everything in the house except for the one thing physically bolted to the floor.
Heard in
Nationwide
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