Out-and-out means complete and thorough, with nothing held back. An out-and-out lie.
It goes before the noun and nearly always before a negative one. An out-and-out success is possible and far rarer in print than an out-and-out disaster.
1adjectiveout-and-outComplete and thorough, with nothing held back.
“The whole scheme was an out-and-out fraud from the first day.”
out-and-out is a quality.
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire