1. Everything, excluding nothing; everything with all the trimmings. A similar meaning as the phrase "lock, stock, and barrel".
2. (older meaning) A drinking establishment for the poor; a tavernous shanty.
Some suspect it to have originated as
Irish siebin "
small mug, cheap
ale", which entered
English as shebeen "a dive, a dump where unlicensed liquor is sold". In 1878 shebang was used to refer to the same sort of place, but it was also being used as a general term for almost any kind of business, as 'to sell your shebang for cash on the barrel head'. By the 1920s the phrase "the whole shebang" began appearing.