Meaning
The entire thing; everything involved in a situation, taken as a complete package with nothing left out. Informal American slang, usually 'the whole enchilada', patterned on older phrases like the whole nine yards and the whole shebang. Colloquial and playful; fine in speech and light writing, out of place in formal prose. The big enchilada usually means the most important person or thing in a set, not merely the whole. Regional use: American English.
Origin
The food word entered American English in 1876 from Mexican Spanish enchilada, but the figurative use is mid-twentieth-century US slang. The earliest known citation - the OED's first, surfaced via Wiktionary - is Earl Wilson's syndicated column of 22 October 1951 in the Delta Democrat-Times: 'Who started the expression, The whole enchilada? It's around now...' - the question itself showing it was then fresh slang; the column also ran in the Houston Post on 1 November 1951. Mike Connolly's gossip column used it plainly in 1957 ('Total budget for the whole enchilada is well under $500,000'). Etymonline dates the phrase only by 1965, which the 1951 evidence antedates. It follows the older whole-plus-noun pattern (whole shebang, whole ball of wax, whole nine yards) and spread widely from the 1970s.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- the big enchilada
- the full enchilada
- whole enchiladas (rare plural)
Usage Examples
- The buyout includes the studios, the back catalogue, and the theme parks - the whole enchilada.
- She did not want a partial renovation; new roof, new kitchen, the whole enchilada, finished by June.
- Rather than license one module, the firm acquired the whole enchilada and folded it into its platform.