whole hog, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

whole hog n.

absolutely everything, the very best of something; usu. in phr. below.

1832		H. Clay Speeches (1860) II 114: The senator modestly claimed only an old smoked, rejected joint; but the stomach of his excellency yearned after the whole hog! [DA].
1839		T. Haliburton Letter-bag of the Great Western (1873) 95: The appetite of the public is like that of the boa constrictor – it is not satisfied with less than the whole hog.
1843		Comic Almanack Feb. 351: A proposition that they should adopt the principle of the whole hog.
1851		Bell’s Life in Sydney 12 Apr. 3/1: Charles [...] appeared in an improved Adamite state to swear the entire porker against her.
1855		T. Haliburton Nature and Human Nature I 218: He poured himself out a tumbler of brandy and water, that warnt half-and-half, but almost the whole hog.
1883		in W.L. Fleming Documentray Hist. of Reconstruction II 434: Some of them [...] proved better men than the Republicans, but still we don’t put the whole hog on them [DA].
1894		G.W. Cable John March, Southerner 119: He’s faw the whole hawg or none.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Mar. 13/3: When the speaker referred to going the whole hog for Freetrade, the interrupter remarked, ‘Where did you get your idea of the whole hog from?’ [...] ‘When I saw you, my friend.’.
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 266/1: Whole hog (Anglo-American). Thorough bare-faced lie.
1931		Leola B. Pettigrew ‘You Need a Woman Like Me’ 🎵 Now, let me get you told, you dirty son of a gun! / If I can’t get the whole hog, mama don’t really want none!
1948		J.F. Bardin Devil Take the Blue-Tail Fly in Bardin Omnibus (1976) 489: The great Diego has gone completely commercial – really, the whole hog!
1954		(con. 1920s–30s) J.O. Killens Youngblood (1956) 544: I don’t mean the whole damn hog.
1978		L. Kramer Faggots 289: He yearned for the whole hog. In art as in his life.
1995		(con. 1860s) P. Ackroyd Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem 54: The comedian-caroller who had sung ‘The Whole Hog or None.’.

In phrases

go the whole hog (v.) (also cut the whole hog, go the whole pig) [? to eat a complete pig; for suggestions based on the main sense above, i.e. ‘going’ or wagering money, see Schele de Vere, Americanisms (1872), 606: ‘Some seek its source in the fact that in vernacular English hog was for many centuries the name of a piece of money; first of a shilling or six pence [...] and now of a five shilling-piece in England, but only of a shilling in Ireland. It is but fair to presume that one gambler would go, as their slang suggests, a shilling, another half a crown, and a third would say, “I’ll go the whole hog,” the whole piece of five shillings. Another explanation is suggested by the fact that the collections of coin-dealers contain numbers of large silver coins, on which the figure of a hog was stamped. These coins were frequently crossed deeply on the reverse for the convenience of breaking them into two or four pieces (fourth thing — farthing) should the bargain require it, and the parties have no small change. Persons who were willing to spend the whole coin would very naturally say, “I’ll go the whole hog.” Either of these derivations is more probable than the suggestion made recently that hog might be, not the name of the animal, but an abbreviation of the Jewish word hoger, a ducat.’]

(orig. US) to do thoroughly, to go all the way; thus various derivs., whole-hogger, -hoggery, -hoggism, -hoggite, whole-hogging.

1828		N.Y. Eve. Post 22 Oct. 2/1: ‘Go the Whole Hog.’ This is a slang phrase in Kentucky, or some of the western states.
1832		J.K. Paulding Westward Ho! I 161: The only resource is to take the whole tree, or ‘go the whole hog,’ as they say in ‘Old Kentuck.’.
1835		Staffs. Advertiser 7 Mar. 4/1: Make the way for us chaps as will go the whole hog.
1837		News & Sun. Herald 26 Mar. 133: ‘Going the whole hog’ [...] has come into use from the ‘barbecue’ of the West, which is a hog, or ox, or bear, roasted whole, for large dinner parties, consisting of men only [...] ‘Do you give joints, or barbecue?’ ‘Oh, we go the whole hog.’ That is the manner in which the phrase came into use.
1840		T. Haliburton Letter-bag of the Great Western (1873) xviii: I am for going the hog — the whole hog — and nothing but the hog!
1841		Punch 24 July I 21: A wheelbarrow of rotten eggs has been sent up to the hustings, to be used [...] by the Figsby voters, who are bent upon ‘going the whole hog’.
1850		‘Ned Buntline’ G’hals of N.Y. 197: I am never prevented from motives of false delicacy from going the whole pig.
1850		Bell’s Life in Sydney 19 Jan. 3/2: [She] went the entire porker in so out and out a style.
1857		G. Borrow Romany Rye I 286: There is nothing like going the whole hog.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 255/1: When a man’s lost caste in society, he may as well go the whole hog, bristles and all, and a low lodging-house is the entire pig.
1863		letter q. in Wiley Life of Billy Yank (1952) 295: When I went in [the Army] I go the whole hog and never take hold of the plow and look back.
1878		‘’Arry at the Play’ in Punch 2 Nov. in P. Marks (2006) 40: In course they carn’t go the ’ole ’og; my Lord Chamberling’s down if they does.
1882		G.W. Peck Peck’s Sunshine 43: She, for one, was going for the whole hog or none.
1890		Sporting Times 5 Apr. 2/1: Sam Adams is going the whole hog with a vengeance at the Trocadero, where, on and after Monday, no less than twenty-one ‘turns’ will be put on the stage nightly.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 36: Hog, a shilling; ‘to go the old [sic] hog,’ to do one’s best, to be in earnest.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 13 Oct. 20/4: If the State is to subsidise (indirectly) the one cult it may as well go the whole hog and subsidise the other – or all the others if need be. Honesty doesn’t dwell in half-way houses.
1907		Dundee Courier 25 Apr. 3/6: He hoped that West Fife would send to parliament a Labour member who would be a ‘whole hogger,’ an ‘out-and-outer’ to assist Mr Asquith .
1914		C. Holme Lonely Plough (1931) 86: ‘You’d better go the whole hog!’ he sneered.
1916		P. Kyne Cappy Ricks 346: Why didn’t you cut the whole hog and call yourself president?
1922		Joyce Ulysses 354: Yet if I went the whole hog, say : I want to, something like that.
1937		P. Cheyney Dames Don’t Care (1960) 32: Sometimes they go the whole hog an’ run off with these crooners.
1945		Lindsay & Crouse State of the Union III ii: You can’t quite go the whole hog with her.
1956		(con. 1909) R.T. Hopkins Banker Tells All 117: I had to go the whole hog, and I am afraid I have come to the tail now.
1965		K. Amis letter 9 Nov. in Leader (2000) 663: I’ve come to the conclusion that we ought to go the whole hog (and have a designed jacket with glossy paper).
1978		S. King Stand (1990) 376: If you were going to have classical shit, you ought to go the whole hog and have your Beethoven.
1983		J. Sullivan ‘Yesterday Never Comes’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] Why don’t you go the whole hog and make it a pound?
1990		R. Malan My Traitor’s Heart (1991) 286: He’s a liberal rebel [...] I’ll go the whole hog for him.
1993		K. Lette Foetal Attraction (1994) 58: Na, you never want to go the whole hog [...] It’s not the cunt, it’s the hunt.
2000		Observer Rev. 25 Jan. 11: Why don’t they go the whole hog and judge everything – autobiography, [...] screenplay...?