go the whole hog
verbEtymology
Origin uncertain; the following etymologies have been suggested: * A reference to using the whole of a hog’s carcass for food, leather, etc., without wasting any part; or specifically to a poem by the English poet William Cowper (1731–1800), “The Love of the World Reproved” (published 1782) in which uncertainty among Muslims about which parts of a hog are permitted as food leads to the whole animal being eaten. * A reference to hog (“(Ireland, New Zealand, UK, historical, slang) shilling; (US, obsolete, rare) ten-cent coin, dime”), possibly in the context of spending the entire sum of money.
Definitions
To do something as completely or entirely as possible
To do something as completely or entirely as possible; to hold back or reserve nothing.
- If you can afford a new computer, you might as well go the whole hog and get it custom built.
- [W]e have, it is hoped, gone "the whole hog" in showing the main points in the life and death of a pig, and the varied services which—willingly or not—he renders to man.
The neighborhood
Vish — recursive loop
No curated loop yet for go the whole hog. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA