whole megillah

whole megillah idiom
Also, whole schmeer. Everything, every aspect or element, as in The accountant went through the whole megillah all over again, or Her divorce lawyer took him for the house, the car, the whole schmeer. The first term alludes to the Megillah, five books of the Bible read on certain Jewish feast days and considered by some to be very long and tedious. Schmeer is Yiddish for “smear” or “smudge.” [Slang; second half of 1900s]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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