from soup to nuts

Idioms  

1. Also,. From beginning to end, throughout, as in We went through the whole agenda, from soup to nuts, or She had to learn a whole new system from A to Z, or It rained from start to finish, or We did over the whole house from stem to stern. The first expression, with its analogy to the first and last courses of a meal, appeared in slightly different forms (such as from potage to cheese) from the 1500s on; the precise wording here dates only from the mid-1900s. The second expression alludes to the first and last letters of the Roman alphabet; see also alpha and omega. The third comes from racing and alludes to the entire course of the race; it dates from the mid-1800s. The last variant is nautical, alluding to the front or stem, and rear or stern, of a vessel.

---

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

from soup to nuts

One might say the menu at “The Bear” has gone from soup to nuts, because as season 5 commences, the staff is coming unhinged.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 25, 2026

Jessica Battilana broke down the festive meal, from soup to nuts, in a recent article for The New York Times Style Magazine.

From New York Times ● Jan. 26, 2024

Because a movie is edited and there's never a take that's perfect from soup to nuts, from A to Z.

From Salon ● Jun. 1, 2023

"He just admitted to a civil rights violation from soup to nuts."

From Fox News ● Dec. 17, 2021

To one of those joints where you get everything from soup to nuts, including a scuttle full of red ink for thirty-five scudi.

From The Sorrows of a Show Girl by Kenneth McGaffey

Related Words

• absolutely
• entirely
• perfectly
• positively
• quite
• thoroughly
• totally
• wholly