go the whole... v.
In phrases
(US) to go on to the end, to do completely and exhaustively.
![]() | Sketches and Eccentricities 40: But didn’t I go the whole animal? | |
![]() | Valentine Vox 353: Then of course you mean to go the whole quadruped? | |
![]() | Bell’s Life in Sydney 5 Sept. 2/5: Hayes would not go the ‘whole’ unclean animal. | |
![]() | Dict. Americanisms 159: to go the whole hog. A Western vulgarism, meaning to be out and out in favor of anything. A softened form of the phrase is to go the entire animal. | |
![]() | Bell’s Life in Sydney 19 June 2/7: [She] mounted the rostrum [...] with the resolve to go the animal, the whole animal and nothing but the animal so help her. | |
![]() | Mons. Merlin 18 Oct. 6/1: Detailing his previous night’s adventures, one says he ‘went the entire animal.’ He didn’t; he went to Evans’s. | |
![]() | Westmorland Gaz. 11 Sept. 8/5: [from N.Y. Teleg.] There ain’t no crocodiles about it. The old ’coon has been going the entire possum. | |
![]() | Twice Round the Clock 62: Better pay first-class and go the entire animal. | |
![]() | Works 647: I am staunch for Jackson, and go the whole quadruped. | |
![]() | Inquirer (Perth, WA) 21 Feb. 2/4: Referring to cattle and the Revenue, he ‘goes the whole animal’ — to use ‘elegant slang’. | |
![]() | Sportsman 4 Feb. 2/1: Notes on News [...] Occasion ally going the whole animal ” is vulgarism that mav be followed with advantage. | |
![]() | Americanisms 606: To go the whole animal is a frequent substitute [i.e. for go the whole hog] in the West, while in the West Indies the phrase is changed into going the whole dog. | |
![]() | Bulletin (Sydney) 5 Nov. 14/3: [W]hereupon a religious organ (which apparently goes the entire animal on the truth of the yarn) takes its humorous contemporary to task for ridiculing holy things [...]. | |
![]() | Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates 904: He advised the noble Lord to withdraw his Motion, and let the Government go the whole animal. | |
![]() | Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates 383: He does not go the whole animal, but he has what he admits to be a bit — he says it is a very little bit — of Protection of his own. |
(US) to go on to the end, to do completely and exhaustively.
![]() | Literary Curiosities 190: Coon, Go the whole, an American equivalent for ‘go the whole hog’. | |
![]() | Dict. of Invective (1991) 95: Because of coon’s disparaging use, most people today steer clear of the many phrases in which the word has appeared, e.g. [...] to go the whole coon. |
(US) to do thoroughly, to go all the way, to commit oneself unreservedly.
![]() | Kentuckian in N.Y. I 188: I’m flambergasted! if that ain’t what I call goin the whole cretur, he’d go to Congress from old Kentuck as easy as I could put a gin sling under my jacket. |
(US) to risk or do everything possible.
![]() | Clockmaker I 23: I never seed or heerd tell of any harm in ’em, exept goin the whole figur for Gineral Jackson. | |
![]() | Letter-bag of the Great Western (1873) 71: It is not a subject for equalization, for studying balances, and for making nicely adjusted scales. We must go the whole figure, as they express it. | |
![]() | Dict. Americanisms. | |
![]() | Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 4 Mar. 6/1: ‘"1 go the whole flgure when I go for a man’. | |
![]() | Ivory Tower 309: He has the so to call it momentous season, or scene, [...] in which she goes the whole ‘figure’. |
see under whole hog n.