Dictionary

go the whole hog en · VERB

Pronunciation

• (General-American) audio
• /ˈɡəʊ ðə həʊl ˈhɒɡ/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• /-ˈhɑɡ/ (General-American, cot-caught-merger)
• (Australia) audio
• /ˈɡoʊ ðə hoʊl ˈhɔɡ/ (General-American)

Etymology

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.

Meanings

1. (US, idiomatic, informal, intransitive) To do something as completely or entirely as possible; to hold back or reserve nothing.
   • The then only hope, thought Bond, was to stamp on him now. Not to share the bank with the table, or to take some minor part of it, but to go the whole hog. This would really jolt Le Chiffre. 1953, Ian Fleming, “The Deadly Tube”, in Casino Royale, London: Pan Books, published 1955, page 86:
   • “[…] We had a glimpse of a Swann tremendously agitated. In a state of nerves. You see, Odette had left.” / “You mean to say that she has gone the ‘whole hog’ with him; that she has ‘burned her boats’?” inquired the Doctor cautiously, testing the meaning of his phrases. 1922, Marcel Proust, “Swann in Love”, in C[harles] K[enneth] Scott Moncrieff, transl., Remembrance of Things Past: Part One: Swann’s Way, volume II, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, page 12:
   • Having nothing else to do, I thought that I might, in part, amuse myself by observing the proceedings and listening to the remarks of a certain sea-captain (also a visiter at the same time), an Englishman born, and, though a naturalized citizen, an Englishman still in his heart, and notable for the rotundity of his assertions—"going the whole hog," as the saying now is. All his notions of perfection seemed to be derived from English things; […] 1831 June 4, “[Miscellaneous]”, in H[ezekiah] Niles, editor, Niles’ Weekly Register, […], volume IV, number 14 (Fourth Series; volume XL, number 1,028, overall), Baltimore, Md.: H. Niles, →OCLC, page 234, column 2:
   • Professor [Charles Austin] Beard at least goes the whole hog, and being logical and intelligent, is prepared to draw the full consequences of his conception of security. 1938 February 11 (date written), Dorothy Thompson, “Our Dangerous Friends”, in Let the Record Speak, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Company […], published 1939, →OCLC, page 131:
   • If you can afford a new computer, you might as well go the whole hog and get it custom built.
   • To gain influence in Canada, and be the leader of a party, a man must, as the Yankees say, "go the whole hog." 1853, [Susanna] Moodie, chapter II, in Life in the Clearings versus the Bush, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 50:
   • [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. 1852, “All about Pigs”, in Charles Dickens, editor, Household Words. A Weekly Journal, volume V, number 123, New York, N.Y.: Angell, Engel & Hewitt, […], →OCLC, page 474, column 1:
   • And then, today, she [Liz Truss] went the whole hog, sacking her chancellor [Kwasi Kwarteng] and abandoning even more of her plan. 2022 October 14, Tom McTague, “The Liz Truss Travesty Becomes Britain’s Humiliation”, in Jeffrey Goldberg, editor, The Atlantic, Washington, D.C.: The Atlantic Monthly Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 26 Jul 2025:

Forms

Relateds

totus porcus · whole hog · the whole nine yards · ham wild · full throttle · all the way

Synonyms

go ham · pull out all the stops · go the entire animal · go all out

wikipedia: William Cowper