1. Home
2. Idioms
3. Megillah

Megillah

---

---

whole megillah

Also, whole schmeer. Everything, every aspect or element, as in The accountant went through the whole megillah all over again, or Her divorce lawyer took him for the house, the car, the whole schmeer. The first term alludes to the Megillah, five books of the Bible read on certain Jewish feast days and considered by some to be very long and tedious. Schmeer is Yiddish for "smear" or "smudge." [Slang; second half of 1900s]

See also: Megillah, whole

megillah

(məˈgɪlə)

n. a long and complicated story. (From Hebrew megillah via Yiddish.) Here you come in here with this megillah about a flat tire and how your brother-in-law stole your jack and how your arthritis is kicking up—what do you think I am, some sort of shoulder to cry on?