whole boiling

English

Etymology

Suggesting a large load of laundry to be boiled clean.

Noun

the whole boiling

1. (archaic) The whole lot; all, or everybody.
   • 1852 March – 1853 September, Charles Dickens, Bleak House, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1853, →OCLC:

     "And Toughey—him as you call Jo—was mixed up in the same business, and no other; and the law-writer that you know of was mixed up in the same business, and no other; and your husband, with no more knowledge of it than your great grandfather, was mixed up (by Mr. Tulkinghorn, deceased, his best customer) in the same business, and no other; and the whole bileing^[sic] of people was mixed up in the same business, and no other. […] "

   • 1903, Robert Barr, Stephen Crane, The O'Ruddy:

     Well, I gave a better account of myself than Paddy here, for I made most of them keep their distance from me; but him they got on the turf before you could say Watch me eye, and the whole boiling of them was on top of him in the twinkling of the same.