kit and caboodle

[mscallisto]

I tried to locate the origin long ago and seem to remember getting lost somewhere around "a special glass and the beer that was in it" or something like that.

Where does kit and caboodle come from and just what did it originally mean?

Originally posted (by mistake) in Wordplay.

 

[Dimandja]

Kit and caboodle means the works or the full treatment.

The meaning of kit is the whole set, the same as the meaning for caboodle. A redundancy.

See

http://www.wordorigins.org/wordork.htm