Word.ws English Dictionary

to the gills

to the gills prepositional phrase: entirely or extremely; to the greatest degree possible.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (idiomatic) Entirely or extremely; to the greatest degree possible.
    • He came in with a suitcase, packed to the gills with samples and demonstration products.
    • It’s a film that is utterly maximalist, stuffed to the gills with gadgets, gimmicks, ideas both good and bad. An exhausting, exhilarating watch.2017 September 19, Gwilym Mumford, “Kingsman: The Golden Circle review – spy sequel reaches new heights of skyscraping silliness”, in the Guardian

Synonyms of to the gills

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All synonyms of to the gills

Words formed from to the gills

Questions about to the gills

What does to the gills mean?
To the gills means entirely or extremely; to the greatest degree possible.
What part of speech is to the gills?
To the gills is a prepositional phrase.

Words near to the gills in the dictionary

  1. to the exclusion of
  2. to the extent that
  3. to the fore
  4. to the full
  5. to the fullest
  6. to the gills
  7. to the gods
  8. to the good
  9. to the gunnels
  10. to the gunwales
  11. to the hilt

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: to the gills (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-to the gills.ogg.

Cite this entry: “to the gills.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/to_the_gills. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.