(from) top to toe

Encompassing one's entire body; from one's head to one's feet. Typically refers to how one is dressed and groomed. This is a fancy event, so you need to look good from top to toe. Schedule a haircut and shine your shoes. We're going to church today, so be sure to clean the kids top to toe. A: "Are you getting your hair done?" B: "Of course. For a gala event like this, you have to look glamorous from top to toe."

from top to toe

mainly BRITISH

COMMON You use from top to toe to talk about the whole of someone's body. Carefully, she began to wash her body from top to toe. She was trembling from top to toe. He's dressed from top to toe in black. Note: You can also use top-to-toe before a noun. A top-to-toe body treatment will make your skin feel great. Compare with from head to toe.

from ˌtop to ˈtoe

from the head to the feet; completely: We were covered in mud from top to toe.

from head/top to heels/toe/foot

One’s entire body; totally. The earliest of these slightly varied expressions is from head to foot, which Homer used in the Iliad, Aristophanes in Plutus, Plautus in several plays, and many others after them. Shakespeare used from top to toe in Hamlet (1.2). The alliterative head to heels, dating from about 1400, was favored by the English poet William Cowper (Anti-Thelypthora, 1781): “So polished and compact from head to heel.” See also stem to stern.

See also: foot, head, heel, to, toe, top

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