elevatorful

From elevator +‎ -ful.

elevatorful (plural elevatorfuls or elevatorsful)

1. Enough to fill an elevator.
   • 1884 June 18, Congressional Record: Containing the Proceedings and Debates of the Forty-Eighth Congress, First Session, volume XV, Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, page 5315:

     In gathering up the goods of producers the car-load is the common unit, and yet an iron-bound rule in a national statute touching the commerce by rail of 100,000 miles of road, comprehending movements of freight where grain by the elevatorful, coal by the output of a mine, wood by the acre, or sand by the hill, might work inconvenience where the exception would be sanctioned if no monopoly was created against the smaller car-load dealer.

   • 1947 August 24, Nadine Mason, “Life’s Errors Go to Court: Divorce Judge’s Day Filled With Others’ Problems”, in Los Angeles Times, volume LXVI, part II (Local News), page 1:

     They come in elevatorsful, with their children, and their witnesses, and their lawyers.

   • 1977, Norman Ward, Her Majesty’s Mice, McClelland and Stewart, →ISBN, page 52:

     Well, what the hell, any passing observer might observe, some elevators are stronger than others. Yet in each instance an elevatorful comes out at one ton.

   • 1978 May 6, William Scaife, “...And a grand old party was had by all...”, in The Morning Union, volume 115, number 106, Springfield, Mass., page 1, column 3:

     The delegates trickled up, beginning about 7 p.m., then came by the handfuls, elevatorfuls and hundreds, finally making it all but impossible to move in the hall.

   • 1985, Tonia Chao, Communicating Through Architecture: San Francisco Chinese Restaurants as Cultural Intersections, 1849-1984, Berkeley, Calif.: University of California, Berkeley, →OCLC, page 130:

     Forbidden City with its newly installed terrace was sold out last Saturday night-⁠-ten days in advance....The Chinese Skyroom turned customers away be the elevatorfuls.