Meaning
Everyone available is needed to help, especially to deal with an emergency, a rush of work, or a crisis. It summons the whole team rather than a subset, and it carries a note of urgency and collective effort. Neutral to jocular in tone, and common in workplaces and news reporting. Neutral but energetic; often jocular in workplace settings. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The expression began as a literal order aboard sailing warships and merchantmen: 'all hands' was the established naval way of saying the entire ship's company, and calling them on deck summoned every crew member for sail manoeuvres, storms, fire, or battle. Idiom dictionaries describe it as originally a naval command and record the humorous extension 'all hands and the cook'. Printed citations collected by Wiktionary show the literal order in nautical fiction by 1918 (Edgar Rice Burroughs) and figurative uses in sport reporting and fiction by 2000. No standard reference pins a first figurative citation, so the transition from order to general idiom is dated only loosely to the twentieth century.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- all hands and the cook
- all hands to the deck
- all hands to the pumps
- every hand on deck
Usage Examples
- When the server crashed on launch day, it was all hands on deck at the office until midnight.
- With three big orders shipping Friday, the bakery needed all hands on deck, so even the owner boxed cakes.
- The council called all hands on deck to sandbag the river defences before the storm arrived.