across-the-board

[uh-kraws-thuh-bawrd, -bohrd, uh-kros-]

adjective

1. applying to all employees, members, groups, or categories; general.

   The across-the-board pay increase means a raise for all employees.

2. (of a bet) covering all possibilities of winning on a given result, especially by placing a combination bet on one horse in a race for win, place, and show.

across-the-board

adjective

1. (of salary increases, taxation cuts, etc) affecting all levels or classes equally

2. horse racing the US term for each way

Word History and Origins

Origin of across-the-board¹

First recorded in 1940–45

Idioms and Phrases

Applying to all the individuals in a group, as in They promised us an across-the-board tax cut, that is, one applying to all taxpayers, regardless of income. This expression comes from horse racing, where it refers to a bet that covers all possible ways of winning money on a race: win (first), place (second), or show (third). The board here is the notice-board on which the races and betting odds are listed. Its figurative use dates from the mid-1900s.

Example Sentences

The commission’s Republican members opposed the across-the-board regulation.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

“It’s always been the place where projects get stuck. This is the first clean, across-the-board, objective, straightforward exemption that anyone can figure out.”

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Mitchell supports an across-the-board minimum wage increase, rather than efforts to raise industry-specific wages.

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To some, this all amounts to an across-the-board war on elite higher education by the Trump administration in an effort to reshape universities in a more conservative-friendly image.

Read more on BBC

Lawsuit accuses Trump’s reshaped National Science Foundation of imposing ideology and across-the-board cuts at a cost of scientific and economic advancement.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• sweeping