HANDFUL • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Handful

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/hˈændfˌʊl/ Listen

noun

handful n. (pl. handfuls)

As much as the hand will grasp or contain.

A hand's breadth; four inches. (Obs.) "Knap the tongs together about a handful from the bottom."

A small quantity or number. "This handful of men were tied to very hard duty."

A person, task, or situation, which is the most that one can manage; as, my two-year-old is a handful.

To have one's handful, to have one's hands full; to have all one can do. (Obs.) "They had their handful to defend themselves from firing."

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Etymology of 'Handful'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Handful" Quotes from Famous Books

... due to sexual congress with women, is held to be freed from attachments. That man is certainly emancipated who knows truly the nature of the birth, the destruction, and the exertion (or acts) of living creatures. That man becomes certainly freed who regards (as worthy of his acceptance) only a handful of corn, for the support of life, from amidst millions upon millions of carts loaded with grain, and who disregards the difference between a shed of bamboo and reeds and a palatial mansion.[1485] That man becomes certainly freed who beholds ...

— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... when the weather is clear, When the work is all over, and even is near, They walk in the garden and gaze down below On the Valley of Gosh, where the young rivers go; Where the houses of Gosh seem so paltry and vain, Like a handful of pebbles strewn over the plain; Where tiny black forms crawl about in the vale, And stare at the mountain they fear them ...

— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis

... forward to her companion's assistance. She stumbled over something that moved and tried to push her aside. Harriet thrust out both hands and grappled with the object. She grasped a handful of hair. ...

— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge

... toward the dresser, upon which was a handful of bills. "Help yourself. Better make it twenty-five. Then wait outside, please. We will join you in a ...

— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... in search of kingdoms, found it worth their while to enlist in the service of the Church, and to endure the restrictions which such a service inevitably entailed. The true strength of the Church lay in her moral influence. It was a handful, even among the clergy, who devoted themselves heart and soul to the ideal of society which she set up. Still her ideal was in possession of the field; it might be subjected to a negative and sceptical criticism by an isolated philosopher, ...

— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis

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