Green’s Dictionary of Slang

whole boiling lot n.

also boiling, whole biling, ...boiling, ...boiling bunch, ...boiling pack

absolutely everything, absolutely everyone.

[UK]A. M’Laren Scottish Volunteers 25: We have Soldiers and Volunteers, and Fencibles, enough to face the Whole Boiling of them.
[UK]C. Dibdin Yngr Song Smith 115: But Old Nick, who all grinders can beat, / Will soon grind the whole boiling together.
[UK]‘An Amateur’ Real Life in London I 385: D—n me if I would give a pair of crazy crabshells without vamp or whelt for the whole boiling of ’em — there is not one of ’em worth a bloody jemmy.
[US]J. Neal Down-Easters I 61: Old Jerry P.R. Gage was the biggest gentleman ever you see, an’ so’s the whole bylin’ of ’em.
[UK]Metropolitan Mag. XIV Sept. 334: He hauled up the leaders so smartly as to bring the whole four upon their haunches with a crash that unsettled the whole boiling of them.
[US]T. Haliburton Clockmaker III 248: The last mile, as he said, ‘tho’ the shortest one of the whole bilin’, took the longest to do it by a jug-full.’.
[UK]‘Epistle from Joe Muggins’s Dog’ in Era (London) 27 May 6/1: Cut up jolly bad, the whole bilin.
[UK]Dickens Bleak House (1991) 806: And the whole bileing of people was mixed up in the same business, and no other.
[UK]T. Buckley Sydenham Greenfinch 53: Dashing past a whole ‘biling’ (as the classico-American style expresses it) of houses, men, women, children, gigantic gas boilers [etc].
[UK]C. Reade Hard Cash I 285: Dis child never seen such a mixallaneous biling o’ darkies as this yar.
[UK]G.A. Sala Quite Alone III 173: The whole boiling of ’em. Tom, Dick, and Harry.
[UK]W.H. Smyth Sailor’s Word-Bk (1991) 115: Boiling. The ‘whole boiling’ means the entire quantity, or whole party.
[Ind]‘Aliph Cheem’ Lays of Ind (1905) 7: Till, after a good twenty minutes of play, / He wished the whole boiling would nautch it away.
[UK]E.L. Linton Patricia Kemball II 164: He have Dora? No, not if he licked my foot for her, and I broke the whole boiling of them – as I will!
[UK]Leicester Chron. 6 Nov. 9/1: Not content with a shirt, each took, as ‘Ginger’ expressed it, ‘the whole bloomin’ boilin’’ .
[UK]C. Deveureux Venus in India I 18: As fast as a regiment arrives from Afghanistan, the whole boiling rush off to bazaars, and you can see the Tommy Atkins waiting outside the knocking shops, holding their pricks in their hands, and roaring out to those having women to look sharp!
[Aus]Bird o’ Freedom (Sydney) 25 Apr. 3/2: Unless you leave off calling our claims baro bush swindles [...] we’ll tar an’ feather tho whole boilin’ pack of you.
[UK]H. Macfall Wooings of Jezebel Pettyfer 324: De feller dat wins de throw ob de dice he’s goin’ to take de whole boilin’.
[Aus]‘Rolf Boldrewood’ In Bad Company 11: A delegate walkin’ up and down, makin’ believe to be boss, while I’m payin’ for the wages and rations, and horses and thrashing-machine, and the whole boiling.
[UK]C. Holme Lonely Plough (1931) 178: The whole boiling had been at them telling them they could only vote for nine!
[Aus]E. Dyson Spats’ Fact’ry (1922) 34: Mean, tha’s what they are, the big boilin’ iv ’em — dumb, dirty mean!
[Scot]‘Ian Hay’ First Hundred Thousand (1918) 289: The whole boiling lot are to be hoisted onto the parapet, with their escort.
[UK]‘Sapper’ Bulldog Drummond 210: The whole boiling bunch are asleep or I’ll eat my hat.
[Aus](con. 1830s–60s) ‘Miles Franklin’ All That Swagger 2: At any rate, among the whole boiling of Delacys was never a Kevin, a Patrick, nor an Aloysius. [Ibid.] 148: Whatever she was, he thought her worth a whole boiling of Fullwoods.
[UK]Derby Dly Teleg. 9 June 1/5: We shipped the whole boiling lot there.
[NZ]N. Marsh Died in the Wool (1963) 222: I’m keeping my eye on the whole boiling lot of you, and that’s flat.
[UK]P. Larkin ‘Going, Going’ in High Windows 22: Before I snuff it, the whole / Boiling will be bricked in / Except for the tourist parts.
[UK]T. Pratchett Men at Arms (1994) 143: The city could spare a clown or two [...] the loss of the whole boiling could only make the world a slightly happier place.