"each, considered indefinitely as a unitary part of an aggregate; all, of a collective or aggregate number, taken one by one;" early 13c., contraction of Old English æfre ælc "each of a group," literally "ever each" (Chaucer's everich), from each with ever added before it for emphasis. The word still is felt to want emphasis; as in Modern English every last ..., every single ..., etc.
Also a pronoun to Chaucer, Shakespeare, Spenser, "each of any number of persons or things; every one." Compare everybody, everything, etc. The word everywhen is attested from 1843 but never caught on; neither did everyhow (1837).
Every now and then "repeatedly, at short intervals" is from 1660s. Every once in a while, U.S. colloquial, "now and then, from time to time," is attested from 1814 (Bartlett calls it "A singular though very common expression"). Slang phrase every Tom, Dick, and Harry "every man, everyone" dates from at least 1723, from the common English given names.
That is to ſay, they affirm, that once upon a Time (tho' they never yet could tell when) all Mankind were upon a Level, and that there was no ſuch Thing as Government in the World; and that Tom, Dick, and Harry, ay, every individual Man, Woman, and Child, had a Right to the whole World. [Charles Leslie, "A Short and Eaſie Method with the Deists," London, 1723]
sink to wash food, dishes, etc., 1824. Phrase everything but (or and) the kitchen sink is attested from 1944, from World War II armed forces slang, in reference to intense bombardment.
Out for blood, our Navy throws everything but the kitchen sink at Jap vessels, warships and transports alike. [Shell fuel advertisement, Life magazine, Jan. 24, 1944]
Earlier was everything but the kitchen stove (1919).
1727, Swift's name in "Gulliver's Travels" for an imaginary country where everything was on a gigantic scale. Not *brobdignag.
"leader who maintains excessive bureaucratic control," 1888, from Pooh Bah, the name of the "Lord High Everything Else" character in Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Mikado" (1885).
1899; never defined in a generally accepted way. Early use with reference to British India; later often of everything between Egypt and Iran. Hence Middle-Eastern (1903).
1670s, "spherical," from globe + -al (1). Meaning "worldwide, universal, pertaining to the whole globe of the earth" is from 1892, from a sense development in French. Global village first attested 1960, popularized, if not coined, by Canadian educator Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980).
Postliterate man's electronic media contract the world to a village or tribe where everything happens to everyone at the same time: everyone knows about, and therefore participates in, everything that is happening the minute it happens. Television gives this quality of simultaneity to events in the global village. [Carpenter & McLuhan, "Explorations in Communication," 1960]
"disreputable, vulgar," 1795, from raff "people," usually of a lower sort (1670s), probably from rif and raf (mid-14c.) "everyone, everything, one and all," from Middle English raf, raffe "one and all, everybody" (see riffraff). Related: Raffishly; raffishness.
