With bells/knobs on

Origin of: With bells/knobs on

With bells/knobs on

‘With bells on’ is a British colloquialism that dates from the late 19th century and means ‘and all the rest’ or ‘with all the extras’. The variant ‘with knobs on’ appears a little later from the 1920s and is often used as a childish retort as in ‘same to you, with knobs on’.