The entire structure; the whole business and everything connected with it. The precise meaning of shebang in this phrase has been lost. It dates from mid-nineteenth century America, when it denoted a hut or shack, which makes no sense in the current cliché. Bret Harte used it: “That don’t fetch me even of [sic] he’d chartered the whole shebang” (“The Story of a Mine,” 1877). An alliterative synonym is the whole shooting match (also put as the whole shoot). Originally this meant a shooting competition, a usage dating from the mid-1700s. The addition of whole and the figurative meaning are much newer, dating from the 1900s. Also see kit and caboodle.