megillah

or me·gil·la

[ muh-gil-uh; Sephardic Hebrew muh-gee-lah ]

noun

, plural me·gil·lahs, Sephardic Hebrew me·gil·loth, me·gil·lot [m, uh, -gee-, lawt].

1. Slang.
   1. a lengthy, detailed explanation or account:

      Just give me the facts, not the whole megillah.

   2. a lengthy and tediously complicated situation or matter.
2. (italics) Hebrew. a scroll, especially one containing the Book of Esther. Others are the Book of Ecclesiastes, the Song of Solomon, the Book of Ruth, and the Book of Lamentations.

megillah

/ miɡiˈla; məˈɡɪlə /

noun

1. a scroll of the Book of Esther, read on the festival of Purim
2. a scroll of the Book of Ruth, Song of Songs, Lamentations, or Ecclesiastes
3. slang.
   anything, such as a story or letter, that is too long or unduly drawn out

Word History and Origins

Origin of megillah¹

First recorded in 1910–15; from Yiddish megile, from Biblical Hebrew məgillāh “scroll, roll, volume,” from gālal “to roll”

Word History and Origins

Origin of megillah¹

Hebrew: scroll, from galal to roll

Example Sentences

“You have to do the whole megillah” when the crisis is as deep as it was, Rice said, because no single strategy can be effective.

From Los Angeles Times

And the big megillah: the Good Hope Road and MLK intersection.

From Washington Post

No, wait, he wants to buy the whole megillah!

From The Verge

“That was our biggest scene — a megillah,” Pearson says by phone.

From Washington Post

The drama of Jewish male selfhood that preoccupied so many in the middle generations — the whole Philip Roth-Woody Allen megillah — is all but erased.

From New York Times