Meaning
Entirely, completely, and in every part; the whole thing without exception. Typically adverbial after a verb, as in 'they bought the company lock, stock and barrel' or 'the plan was abandoned lock, stock and barrel'. Informal and emphatic; often used in business or political contexts of wholesale takeover or total rejection. Regional use: General English (British and North American).
Origin
The three nouns are the three principal parts of a flintlock musket: the lock or firing mechanism, the stock or wooden body, and the barrel. Together they amount to the whole firearm, making the phrase a merism, an enumeration of parts that stands for the entirety. Wordorigins.org traces the earliest known uses to American newspapers: 'stock, lock, and barrel' in Philadelphia's Aurora for the Country on 16 January 1811, and the first clearly metaphorical use, having nothing to do with guns, in Connecticut's Middlesex Gazette on 21 February 1811. The Oxford English Dictionary's 1817 citation, a Walter Scott letter, refers to an old Scottish saying about a pistol wanting 'a new stock, a new lock, and a new barrel', but that Scottish saying is not attested before an 1817 poem that may have invented it, so the Scottish-antecedent theory lacks evidence. The original American word order was 'stock, lock, and barrel'; the modern order appeared by 1824 and became fixed around 1840, and the origin is most likely North American.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- stock, lock and barrel
- the whole shooting match
Usage Examples
- The tech giant bought the startup lock, stock and barrel, including its patents and staff.
- The new editor rejected the old style guide lock, stock and barrel.
- After the scandal, the charity's trustees were replaced lock, stock and barrel.