be-all

English

Noun

be-all (plural be-alls)

  1. (poetic) The whole; all that is to be.
    • a. 1606, William Shakespeare, Macbeth, act 1, scene 7, lines 4–5:
      That but this blow / Might be the be-all and the end-all!
    • 1988 February 14, Louise Rice, quoting Angela Bowen, “Confronting The Mythology Of Motherhood”, in Gay Community News, volume 15, number 30, page 11:
      Bowen also spoke of […] teaching her daughter to rely not just on a mother, but on a community. "No one person should try to be the be-all to another person. We must surround our children with people they can count on."
    • 2007, Kirbyjon H. Caldwell, Be In It to Win It:
      […] to be happy with their lot in life, content with things as they are, things that may once have been be-alls and absolute end-alls but that lost their intoxication after five years, put them on automatic pilot after ten and became a prison after fifteen.

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