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Origin contested
“The whole nine yards”
What it means
Everything; the full extent of something.
Where it comes from
Nine yards has been claimed as the length of a bolt of cloth, the capacity of a cement mixer, the belt of ammunition in a fighter aircraft and the fabric in a kilt or a sari.
How sure are we?
Genuinely unknown. The earliest firm citations date only from the 1950s and 1960s, which rules out most of the historical explanations offered. That has not stopped any of them circulating with complete confidence.