and all

English

Alternative forms

• an all, n'all, anaw (informal or regional)

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Adverb

and all (not comparable)

1. (idiomatic) Including every object, attribute, or process associated with preceding item or series of items.

   He ate the whole fish, bones and all.

   • 1995 August 21, “Pros and Cons of the Balanced Budget Amendment”, in Ind_Limbaugh:

     Now proper French tradition requires that when you eat the ortolan, you drape a napkin over your head and consume the bird in one bite, beak, bones and all.

   • 1998 May 15, Barry Bearak, “Hailing Danger; Behind the Wheel: Long Hours and Hard Feelings”, in New York Times:

     The facts of the accident, however, are too ambiguous to reek of malice or recklessness. And the drivers involved, flaws and all, are hardly demons.

   • 2008 September 16, Ken Hoffman, “An oak tree is no longer mighty”, in Houston Chronicle, page STAR 1:

     We had six large trees ripped from the ground, roots and all. A firefighter told me that the wind hit 110 mph in West U.

2. (idiomatic, informal) Used to suggest certain unstated relevant implications of what has been stated.

   Synonyms: and all that, and that, and stuff, and so on, et cetera

   What with you saying he was sick and all, I figured neither of you were coming.

3. (Northern England, Scotland) Used to add emphasis.

   He starts yelling and we come running to help, but a fat load of thanks we get and all!

4. (British, informal) As well; in addition.

   I'll have some of the red ones, some green ones, and them yellow ones and all.

   • 2017, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], Bad Dad, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN:

     “You leave my son alone!”
     The woman turned her head slowly towards him. When her eyes met his, she said, “Gilbert, you are forgetting something. Frank is my son and all.”

Usage notes

• Can terminate lists of one or more nouns, verbs, adjectives, or adverbs.
• Regarding the senses used in Scotland, compare an a'.

And all is a well-established tag added to the end of a statement, as in

Isn’t it amazing? He has a Ph.D. and all—J. Shute, 1992

With the nominal meaning “also, besides, in addition”, the use has origins in dialect, as can be seen from the material from many regions given in the English Dialect Dictionary (often written in special ways, e.g., ano', an'-all, an' a'). In many of the examples it seems to lack any perceptible lexical meaning and to be just a rhythmical device to eke out a sentence.

Derived terms

• one and all
• still and all
• Uncle Tom Cobley and all
• warts and all

Translations

idiomatic: including every item associated with preceding item or items

• Finnish: kaikkineen, päivineen (fi)
• French: et tout, et ainsi de suite (fr), et cætera (fr), et tout et tout (fr), et tout le reste (fr)
• Portuguese: e tudo

idiomatic: used to suggest certain unstated relevant implications or what has been stated

• Azerbaijani: zad (az), filan (az), nə bilim, nə
• Finnish: ynnä muuta, ja niin edelleen
• French: et tout le tremblement (fr), tout ça (fr)