Member Profile

The full monty is a British slang phrase of uncertain origin. It is generally used to mean "everything which is necessary, appropriate, or possible; ‘the works’",[1] and has been in common usage in the north of England for many years; the 1982 Yellow Pages for Manchester listed both a "Full Monty Chippy" and a "Fullmonty Chippy".[2] An American equivalent might be phrase "the whole nine yards", "the whole ball of wax", "the whole enchilada", or "the whole shebang".

Since the 1997 film The Full Monty, which features a group of men in Sheffield learning to strip, the phrase has acquired an additional usage meaning removing every item of clothing.[1]

Possible origins of the phrase include:[3]

rigorous training by Field Marshal Montgomery: 'We suddenly knew that we were going to be put through the full Monty treatment.'[2]
the large breakfasts eaten by Field Marshal Montgomery.[4]
the huge Eighth Army commanded by Field Marshal Montgomery during the desert campaign in WWII.
a full three-piece suit with waistcoat and a spare pair of trousers (as opposed to a standard two-piece suit) from the Leeds-based British tailors Montague Burton. When the British forces were demobilised after WWII, they were issued with a "demob suit". The contract for supplying these suits was fulfilled by Montague Burton, so the complete suit of clothes issued to the servicemen was known as "the full Monty".[5]
gamblers’ jargon meaning the entire kitty or pot, deriving from the card game called monte[3]