from soup to nuts

English

Etymology

From the order of courses in a formal full course dinner, which typically begins with soup and ends with a dessert such as nuts.

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

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Prepositional phrase

from soup to nuts

1. (US) From the first course of a meal to the last.
2. (idiomatic, US) From beginning to end; throughout.

   We went through the whole agenda, from soup to nuts.

   • 1960, P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing, chapter VII:

     [That cat] is a broken reed to lean on in the matter of catching mice. My own acquaintance with him is a longstanding one, and I have come to know his psychology from soup to nuts. He hasn't caught a mouse since he was a slip of a kitten. Except when eating, he does nothing but sleep.

Synonyms

• (from beginning to end): from A to Z
• from soda to hock
• from aardvark to zymurgy

Related terms

• soup-to-nuts

Translations

from the first course of the meal to the last

• Serbo-Croatian: od predjela do deserta

from beginning to end

• French: de A à Z (fr)
• Latin: ab ovo usque ad mala
• Serbo-Croatian: od glave do repa

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

• Latin: ^{(please verify)} ab ovo usque ad mala (Literally: from the egg to the apples)

Further reading

• soup to nuts on Wikipedia.Wikipedia