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pailful. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
pailful, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
pailful in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
pailful you have here. The definition of the word
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English
Etymology
From pail + -ful.
Noun
pailful (plural pailfuls or pailsful)
- The amount that fills, or would fill, a pail.
1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, , page 9:Here's neither buſh, nor ſhrub to beare off any weather at all: and another Storme brewing, I heare it ſing ith' winde: yond ſame blacke cloud, yond huge one, lookes like a foule bumbard that would ſhed his licquor: if it ſhould thunder, as it did before, I know not where to hide my head: yond ſame cloud cannot chooſe but fall by paile-fuls.
1896, Clifton Johnson, “Snakes”, in What They Say in New England (non-fiction), Boston, Massachusetts, United States: Lee and Shepard Publishers, page 99:Some say that instead of a bowl of milk on the table, it was a pailful on the kitchen-floor fresh from the cow.
1952, Doris Lessing, Martha Quest, Panther, published 1974, page 118:McGrath's lounge was a vast brownish room, with a beige ceiling of heavy plaster divided into squares […] and finally swabbed with pailfuls of gilt.
Translations
amount that would fill a pail