handful
Part of speech: noun
Morphological type: derivation
Etymology: From Middle English handful, hondful, from Old English handfull (“handful”), from Proto-Germanic *handufullō, *handufulliz (“handful”), from Proto-Germanic *handuz (“hand”) + *fullaz (“full”); equivalent to hand + full (“fullness, plenty”) or hand + -ful. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Hondful (“handful”), West Frisian hânfol (“handful”), Dutch handvol (“handful”), German Handvoll (“handful”), Danish håndfuld (“handful”), Swedish handfull (“handful”), Icelandic handfylli (“handful”).
Base: hand
Affixes: -ful
Inflected forms:
form: handfuls
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: handsful
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: handfull
pos: noun
tags: alternative
archaic
Senses:
gloss: The amount that a hand will grasp or contain.
pos: noun
examples: I put two or three corns in my mouth, liked it, stole a handful, went into my chamber, chewed it, and for two months after never failed taking toll of every pennyworth of oatmeal that came into the house: […]
gloss: A hand's breadth; four inches.
pos: noun
tags: obsolete
examples: Knap the tongs together about a handful from the bottom.
gloss: A small number, usually approximately five.
pos: noun
examples: This handful of men were tied to very hard duty.
The names of a number of the most famous North American railroads could be found in the north-east; Pennsylvania, New York Central, Baltimore & Ohio, Chesapeake & Ohio, and the Norfolk & Western, to name but a handful.
You tell me the velocity of a baseball as it leaves Derek Jeter's bat, and I can use the laws of physics to calculate where it will land a handful of seconds later.
Was it deliberate that the first week of October 1961 was chosen to conduct a national survey of passenger usage? Why October of all months, when the holiday season was over and families back at work and at school? Was this a fiddling of the figures to make an unfair case against rail-dependent resorts such as those in the West Country, Norfolk, Lincolnshire and East Yorkshire, where previously overloaded summer services would now only have a handful of locals on board?
gloss: A group or number of things; a bunch.
pos: noun
examples: But, aunt, she must have had some kind of education, her accent was so pure, her English so unfaulty. The other girl dropped her h's by handfuls, and made some very wild confusion in her native etymology.
gloss: Something which can only be managed with difficulty.
pos: noun
tags: informal
examples: Those twins are a real handful to look after.
The Southern acquired them because the little Class "B4" 0-4-0 tanks were finding heavy modern rolling stock more and more of a handful, and at war's end the railway had nothing of suitable power but short wheelbase on its books to take their place on the more tortuous of the dock lines.
Many times dogs are surrendered for reasons such as changes in the family unit, a death in the family, no time to care for a dog, or because that cute little puppy is now a 100 lb untrained handful.
gloss: A five-year prison sentence.
pos: noun
tags: slang
Synonyms: handbreadth
handsbreadth
Related words: handgrip
handhold
Derived words: have one's handful
Translations: