bag and baggage

Idioms and Phrases

All of one's belongings, especially with reference to departing with them; completely, totally. For example, The day he quit his job, John walked out, bag and baggage . Originating in the 1400s, this phrase at first meant an army's property, and to march off bag and baggage meant that the departing army was not leaving anything behind for the enemy's use. By the late 1500s, it had been transferred to other belongings.

Example Sentences

“Here I am, bag and baggage,” she said briskly.

From Literature

Modi had promised on the campaign trail that all Bangladeshis would have to leave Assam, “bag and baggage.”

From Washington Post

For six months the Viceroy and his staff emigrate, bag and baggage, going up the country twelve hundred miles to Simla, on the first range of the Himalayas, which is about as if the President of the United States and his Cabinet should leave Washington on the first of May, and transfer the seat of government to some high point in the Rocky Mountains.

From Project Gutenberg

You passed me over because you had to be rid of the delusion first, bag and baggage.

From Project Gutenberg

I would appoint able judges, at every avenue of my metropolis, who should take cognizance of every fool’s business who came there;—and if, upon a fair and candid hearing, it appeared not of weight sufficient to leave his own home, and come up, bag and baggage, with his wife and children, farmer’s sons, &c., &c., at his backside, they should be all sent back, from constable to constable, like vagrants as they were, to the place of their legal settlements.

From Project Gutenberg