Kit and caboodle

Tue May 15 16:40:30 UTC 2007

On May 15, 2007, at 9:19 AM, Jim Landau wrote:

> My daughter asked me for information on the origin of the phrase "kit
> and caboodle".  Can anybody help

the OED (also Evan Morris's Word Detective) identifies the "kit" part
as meaning a collection of articles (orig. a soldier's articles,
carried in, yes, a kit bag) and the "caboodle" (also "kerboodle" and
just plain "boodle") part as built on "boodle" (U.S. slang) 'crowd,
pack, lot', which possibly might be related to dutch "boedel"
'estate, possession, inheritance, stock'.

so: partly straightforward, partly obscure.

arnold

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