what exactly does"the whole nine yards" mean and where did it originate?

Answer 1

The Whole Nine Yards
This phrase is of unknown origin and is the subject of some debate. At issue is to what does nine yards refer. The meaning is clearly the entirety or everything, but nine yards is not a significant measure of anything. All we know about its origin is that the phrase cannot be traced any earlier than the mid-1960s and that it is American in origin.

Perhaps the most common assumption is that it is from American football, but the canonical distance in that game is ten, not nine, yards. Also common are explanations based on length of cloth, but there is no standard length for a bolt of cloth (which measure anywhere from twenty to twenty-five yards), and nine yards is not a significant measure for any type of garment (a man's suit uses about seven yards of a thirty-inch bolt, double folded; sarongs, saris, kilts, kimonos, bridal veils and any number of other garments have been suggested, none with any accompanying evidence).

The explanation that is currently circulating around the internet most frequently is that nine yards was the length of a belt of machine gun ammunition carried by a WWII fighter plane. To "give it the whole nine yards" was to expend all of one's ammo. This explanation is almost certainly false. For one thing, the type of fighter varies with the teller, sometimes Spitfires in the Battle of Britain, sometimes varying American fighters in the South Pacific. Another reason to doubt it is that ammunition is either counted in rounds or by weight. It is never measured in length of a belt. Chapman points to an origin in the Army and Air Force, which fits in with the post-WWII-era origin, but is otherwise unexplained.

Newspaper columnist and language commentator James Kirkpatrick favors the explanation that it is a reference to the capacity of ready-mix concrete trucks (Fine Print: Reflections on the Writing Art). Safire also plumps for this explanation. This explanation, however, is somewhat questionable as the August 1964 issue of Ready Mixed Concrete magazine gives an average concrete mixer as having a capacity of four and a half cubic yards "just a few years ago" and an average of under six and a half in 1962. A 1988 source (Cecil Adams in More of the Straight Dope), states current mixers range from seven to ten cubic yards, with a rough average of nine. While current averages may be on target, when the phrase arose, the average cement payload was less than four and a half cubic yards. So the cement truck explanation is probably incorrect.

Chapman also suggests that it may be related to the British phrase dressed to the nines, where presumably nine has some numerological significance. He also suggests that yard may refer to the slang usage of that word to mean one hundred dollars.

Other explanations include:

The amount of dirt in a large burial plot;
The number of properties, or yards, in a standard city block in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Levittown, (pick your city);
The amount of cloth used in a burial shroud;
The capacity of coal trucks; and
The number of yards on a square rigged sailing ship (yards being the horizontal poles that hold the sails), even though it was not uncommon for such ships to have eighteen yards.
One final possibility is that it does derive from American football, but was originally intended to be ironic. To go "the whole nine yards" was to fall just short of the goal.

In summary, this is just one of those idiomatic phrases that defy explanation. This may not be satisfying, but it is not uncommon in English.

Answer 2

The phrase "the whole nine yards" means "completely, the whole, everything"

The origins of the expression are unknown, but various theories are popularly held as to the root of it. One of the more common of these is that the expression dates from the Second World War, where the "nine yards" was the full length of a machine-gun ammunition belt, and to "go the full nine yards" was to use it up in its entirety. The expression, however, has only been dated back to 1966 (in U.S. Air Force slang recorded in Vietnam) and it is unlikely it could have been in common use in the 1940s without being recorded either then or in the next twenty years.

The phrase could also be attributed to the tailoring industry, in which a quality suit of clothing required nine yards of material. To tailor a quality suit "takes the whole nine yards."

Other suggested origins have included sources as diverse as the size of cement mixers, the length of bridal veils, the manufacture of kilts, the length of cloth bolts, and the structure of certain sailing vessels (where "yard" is short for yardarm, not for the distance).

Another explanation is that the term is a sarcastic reference to American football, where ten yards is the length of a first down. With running nine yards being no real achievement, to say that someone ran 'the whole nine yards' would be to say that they almost achieved something.

Answer 3

The phrase "the whole nine yards" is supposed to have originated in World War II. The ammunition for chain guns during that time came in boxes which contained a belt of ammunition nine yards long.

When gunners would fire into a target to utterly destroy it and use up an entire box of ammunition and need to reload, they were said to have given their target "the whole nine yards", referring to using up all their ammunition on it.

After the war was over, the phrase made its way into civilian life through returning servicemen, to refer to any time someone put every bit of what they had into something, the way gunners put every bit of their ammunition into their targets to get the job done.

However, as you can see from many of the other answers, all of the stories told about where the phrase comes from are about as apocryphal as Mikey, and his coke and pop-rocks. Where did the phrase actually come from? The world may never know....

Answer 4

The phrase means 'to the fullest extent'.

The commonly accepted origins relate to fabric, concrete and military matters, but its actual origin is unclear, and the website below explains why.

Its first verifiably recorded use is in 1855 in a Pennsylvanian newspaper article about a judge who needed a new shirt but had too much fabric ordered. The article, which may have been a spoof, says:
"He found himself shrouded in a shirt five yards long and four yards broad. What a silly, stupid woman! I told her to get enough to make three shirts; instead of making three, she has put the whole nine yards into one shirt!"

I guess it was quite a complete shirt...

Hope that helps!

Answer 5

It's Scottish in orgin, referring to a traditional Scottish kilt which took nine yards of cloth to make. An unscrupulous tailor might try to cut corners by making his kilts of fewer than 9 yards, thus being able to produce more kilts per bolt of cloth and reap a bigger profit. Someone who gives you the whole nine yards, or goes the whole nine yards, is a "straight shooter" who is "on the up and up" and not "cutting corners" and is "giving you the straight goods" or "going the distance".

Answer 6

"The who nine yards" is the test for the Chain-Gang in' football! In the old school you had three downs in order to make ten yards. You make the prescribed ten yards and your on to another first down and so on! Nine yards was usually good enough to bring out the chain-gang in your favour !

Answer 7

A full concrete mixer holds 9 cubic yards of concrete. When ordering concrete a full truck is refered to a the whole 9 yards.

Answer 8

Back in the day (40s-50s?), machine gun rounds were 9 yards long. So, if someone yelled "Give them the whole 9 yards", that meant fire the whole damn round at them.

Answer 9

It has to do with bolts of fabric. Each bolt had 9 yards of fabric on it. I'll take the whole 9 yards, meant you wanted it all.
Really...no BS.

Answer 10

"4kidsmama" has it right. The saying pertains to bolts of cloth.