for good and all

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Adverb

for good and all (not comparable)

1. (idiomatic) In a way that is conclusive and final.
   • 1575, George Turberville, The Booke of Faulconrie or Hauking‎^[1], London: Christopher Barker, Part 3, p. 275:

     hauing prepared a like feather to the same, of some other Hawke or fowle, resembling the broken feather: you muste cutte the quyll of it, and so force it togyther, as it maye enter the broken quyll of the Hawkes feather, annoynting it before you thruste it in, or seeme to place it for good and all, in the gummie fatte of a fygge

   • 1760, Laurence Sterne, chapter 13, in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman‎^[2], volume 1, page 53:

     It is so long since the reader […] has been parted from the midwife, that it is high time to mention her again to him, merely to put him in mind that there is such a body still in the world, and whom […] I am going to introduce to him for good and all:

   • 1838, Boz [pseudonym; Charles Dickens], Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy’s Progress. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I, II, or III), London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 40:

     “Come,” said Gamfield; “say four pound, gen’lmen. Say four pound, and you’ve got rid of him for good and all. There!”

   • 1972, Richard Adams, Watership Down‎^[3], Puffin, published 1973, Part 1, Chapter 10, p. 61:

     ‘It gets worse and worse the further we go,’ said Acorn. ‘Where are we going and how long will it be before some of us stop running for good and all?’

   • 2020, Monique Roffey, chapter 9, in The Mermaid of Black Conch, Leeds: Peepal Tree Press:

     […] we gonna talk this through for good and all.

Synonyms

• definitively, for good, forever, once and for all, permanently.