lock, stock and barrel
lock, stock and barrel adverb: entirely, completely.
Adverb
lock, stock and barrel (not comparable)
- Entirely, completely.
- They want to buy the whole thing, lock, stock and barrel.
- I do not believe I should save £100 by retaining Mrs. Redford, by the time she was raised, altered, and beautified, for, like the Highlandman’s gun, she wants stock, lock, and barrel to put her into repair.1817 October 29, Walter Scott, “To the same [Daniel Terry]”, in J[ohn] G[ibson] Lockhart, Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart., volume II, Philadelphia, Pa.: Carey, Lea, & Blanchard...
- Synonyms:
- absolutely, all-out, tout à fait, all the way, stone-cold, blind, altogether, stark, cold, at large
Noun
lock, stock and barrel (uncountable)
- The entirety of a thing, with nothing omitted.
- Congress are in possession of the flint, powder, gun, lock, stock and barrel, and still we exclaim with the old lady, take away the musket.1824 April 7, Balt[imore] Morn[ing] Chron[icle], “Standing Armies”, in The Adams Centinel, volume VIII, number 22, Gettysburg, Pa.: Robert Goodloe Harper, →OCLC, page [2], column 2
- Well, they are men cooks; they don't think of what importance a good cup of tea is to a lady. They don't remember that it is the lock, stock, and barrel of a lady's comforts.1872, Charles Chapman, A Voyage from Southampton to Cape Town, in the Union Company's Mail Steamer, page 27
- Synonyms:
- all the marbles, bag and baggage, everytang, everything but the galley stove, everything but the kitchen sink, everything under the sun, full monty, hook, line and sinker, kit and caboodle
Examples of lock, stock and barrel in a sentence
- Supposing the whole Castro regime—lock, stock and barrel—were to be swept out by counter-revolutionaries as effectively as the Batista regime was cleared out[…]1961 June, A. J. Knowles, “An Appraisal of the Cuban Revolution”, in Atlas, volume 1, number 4, page 41:
- "Sinbad not only gets the keys of the city, he gets the whole lock, stock and barrel!"1945, George F. Foley Jr., Sinbad of the coast guard, page 85:
Synonyms of lock, stock and barrel
- absolutely
- all-out
- tout à fait
- all the way
- stone-cold
- blind
- altogether
- stark
- cold
- cap-a-pie
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
- categorically
- completely
- detailly
- downright
- entirely
- exhaustively
- finally
- first and last
- flat-out
- flat out
- from aardvark to zymurgy
- from A to Z
- from head to toe
- from soup to nuts
- from stem to stern
- from the rooter to the tooter
- from top to bottom
- from top to toe
- fully
- handsomely
- heartily
- head to foot
- head to tail
- head to toe
- hook
- line
- and sinker
- in detail
- in full
- lock
Origin of lock, stock and barrel
From the three principal parts of a flintlock. The explanation that it refers to all of a shopkeeper’s possessions—the lock to the door, the stock in trade and the items stored in barrels—is fanciful. First attested in an 1817 letter by the Scottish novelist Walter Scott (see quotation).
Questions about lock, stock and barrel
- What does lock, stock and barrel mean?
- Lock, stock and barrel means entirely, completely.
- How do you use lock, stock and barrel in a sentence?
- Supposing the whole Castro regime—lock, stock and barrel—were to be swept out by counter-revolutionaries as effectively as the Batista regime was cleared out[…]
- What part of speech is lock, stock and barrel?
- Lock, stock and barrel can be an adverb or a noun.
Words near lock, stock and barrel in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: lock, stock and barrel (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “lock, stock and barrel.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lock%2C_stock_and_barrel. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.