Oxford Dictionaries Online
Collins English Dictionary
- There were three from our class, and four from each of the other two classes, so all in all there were eleven of us.
Origins
St Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians
Wyclif 1380 | Tyndale 1534 | Great Bible 1538 |
---|---|---|
whanne alle thingis ben suget to hym, thanne the sonne him silf schal be suget to him that made suget alle thingis to hym, that god be alle thingis in alle thingis. | When all thinges are subdued unto him: then shall the sonne also himself be subjecte unto him that put all thinges under him, that God maye be all in all things. | When all things are subdued unto him: then shall the sonne also himself be subject unto him, that put all thynges under him, that God maye be all in all. |
Geneva 1557 | Rheims 1582 | King James 1611 |
And when all things shallbe subdued unto him: then shall the Sonne also him selfe be subject unto him, that dyd put all thinges under him, that God may be all, in all thinges. | And when all things shal be subdued to him: then the Sonne also him self shal be subject unto him, that subdued al things unto him, that God maye be al in al. | And when all things shall bee subdued unto him: then shal the Sonne also himselfe bee subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all. |
The English Hexapla GB
In dictionaries
a la guerre tout depend de la reputation.
(... everything depends on reputation)
The royal dictionary abridged in two parts: I. French and English. II ..., Abel Boyer, London 1728 GB
ser íntimo con alguno, ser su privado, ser su todo en todo, en lo literal.
la reputación es el todo en la guerra.
(reputation is everything ...)
A Dictionary, Spanish and English, Giuseppe Marco Antonio Baretti, London 1800 GB
A Dictionary of the English Language, Noah Webster, New York 1828 GB (London 1832)
Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English, London 1857 GB
I shall not look upon his like again.”
Shakespeare: Hamlet, ii. 2
Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer 1898 Bartleby
The story so far
- the original meaning - everything, everything desired etc
- a variant of this - all in all with - meaning something like intimate with
- later constructions with take, closer to the modern meaning.
- the modern meaning of on the whole, everything considered, without take.
- a less common modern use meaning in total
1. everything, everything desired etc
The Marriage of Wit and Science, from Five anonymous plays, edited by John Stephen Farmer, London 1575
The Excellence of the English Tongue, written 1595, in Remaines concering Britain, Camden 1614 GB
The Bible and Shakespeare
The King James Bible
1 Corinthians 12:6
1 Corinthians 15:28
Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.
Ephesians 1:22/23
Shakespeare First Folio
That is her loue: for that is all in all
The Taming of the Shrew 2:1
You would say, it hath been all in all his study:
Henry V 1:1
With her, that hateth thee and hates vs all,
Henry VI (2) 1:1
Cates. Hee will doe all in all as Hastings doth
Richard III 3:1
Ham. He was a man, take him for all in all:
I shall not look vpon his like againe
Hamlet 1:2
Or I shall say y'are all in all in Spleene
Othello 4:1
Call all in all sufficient?
Othello 4:1
Later examples with the meaning everything etc
The Lake of Canandaigua in The Lady's Book, Volume 6, Philadeplphia 1833 GB
A general collection of ... voyages and travels, John Pinkerton, London 1809 GB
Ev'n now to me.
HOWARD. Their Flemish go-between And all-in-all. I came to thank her Majesty
For freeing my friend Bagenhall from the Tower
Works of Alfred Lord Tennyson GB
2. All in all with
The Mystical Design of Paradise Lost, Galbraith Miller Crump, New Jersey 1975 GB
3. Constructions with take.
Monsieur Bossu's treatise of the epick poem, René Le Bossu, André Dacier, Fontenelle (Bernard Le Bovier, M. de), Pierre François Le Courayer, Peter Anthony Motteux, Published by J. Knapton and H. Clements, 1719 GB
1700 1724 | 1725 1749 | 1750 1774 | 1775 1799 | 1800 1824 | 1825 1849 | 1850 1874 | 1875 1899 | |
take it for all in all | 2 | 21 | 30 | 39 | 56 | 20 | 18 | |
take him for all in all | 1 | 21 | 34 | 47 | 56 | 65 | 21 | 7 |
take her for all in all | 7 | 17 | 26 | 45 | 21 | 12 | ||
take it all in all | 1 | 1 | 11 | 32 | 32 | 71 | 25 | 22 |
take him all in all | 9 | 22 | 42 | 61 | 21 | 17 | ||
take her all in all | 2 | 5 | 26 | 41 | 13 | 14 | ||
taking it for all in all | 3 | 4 | 21 | 32 | 22 | 20 | ||
taking him for all in all | 1 | 1 | 25 | 28 | 23 | 19 | ||
taking her for all in all | 5 | 3 | 8 | 7 | ||||
taking it all in all | 17 | 30 | 49 | 6 | 6 | |||
taking him all in all | 3 | 8 | 48 | 25 | 22 | |||
taking her all in all | 27 | 17 | 14 | |||||
taken for all in all | 10 | 28 | 39 | 16 | 15 | |||
taken all in all | 1 | 23 | 33 | 13 | 21 |
take ... for all in all
take ... all in all
taking ... for all in all
The State of Literature during the Reign of George II, William Belsham, published in The Scots Magazine (and others) 1794
taking ... all in all
An Historical and Political View of the Constitution and Revolutions of Geneva, Sir Francis d' Ivernois, London 1784
taken for all in all
taken all in all
The Michigan Alumnus, 1900 GB
4. Plain all in all without take
After All: A Novel, Lillian Spencer 1885 (unverifiable) GB
The Louisiana Planter and Sugar Manufacturer 1899 GB
The Michigan Alumnus, 1900 GB
The Rending of Virginia: A History, Granville Davisson Hall 1902 GB (reprint 2000)
Michigan Ensian, Volume 7, 1903 GB
Michigan Alumnus 1904 GB
Twentieth Century Impressions of Ceylon, Arnold Wright, London 1907 GB
Woman: in All Ages and in All Countries, Vol 6 Women of the Romance Countries, Philadelphia 1907 PG (9 instances)
The conservation of natural resources, Gifford Pinchot, Washington DC 1908 GB
5. Altogether, in total
First on the Antarctic Continent, C.E. Borchgrevink, 1901
British national Corpus
Postscript - progression, from noun phrase to sentence adverb
- all things in all things (Wycliffe 1380)
noun function
that God be all things in all things - things dropped (Great Bible 1538)
noun function
That God may be all in all - take for added (Shakespeare 1603)
transitional phase
He was a man, take him for all in all - for dropped, taken replaces take (Motteux (trans) 1719)
participle clause
whose appearance, taken all in all, reminded me more of the Dutch nut-cracker faces - taken dropped
all in all (Robert Burns 1789)
functions as a sentence adverbial
All in all he's a problem must puzzle the devil.
No comments:
Post a Comment