Meaning
Completely, from beginning to end; covering every part of a process, range, or service with nothing left out. It is an informal American expression, as in knowing a subject from soup to nuts or a planner who handles the wedding from soup to nuts. Informal register; the hyphenated adjective (a soup-to-nuts solution) is common in business and journalism. Easily understood outside the US but marked as American. Regional use: American English.
Origin
American in origin, from the traditional formal dinner that opened with soup and ended with nuts taken with wine; the OED labels it US colloquial for 'from beginning to end, completely; everything' and first cites 1910, from the pitcher Christy Mathewson's book Won in the Ninth: 'He knew the game from soup to nuts.' The researcher Barry Popik antedated it in print to 1852, when The Working Man's Friend and Family Instructor quoted an American boasting he could get from soup to nuts in ten minutes. The device has an old antecedent: Horace's 'ab ovo usque ad mala', from the egg to the apple, used a Roman meal's first and last courses the same way - a parallel rather than a documented source. By 1928 the phrase was familiar enough in the United States to serve as the title of a Laurel and Hardy short.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- know it from soup to nuts
- soup to nuts
- soup-to-nuts (adjective)
Usage Examples
- The auditor went through the plant from soup to nuts, checking vats, ledgers, and staff lockers alike.
- Their planner handled the wedding from soup to nuts, so the couple just showed up and danced.
- The series covers the airline's story from soup to nuts, from 1930s mail runs to budget seating.