armfull

plural armfulls · plural armsfull

1. obsoleteObsolete spelling of armful.

   In this state of the weather, and before sunrise, in the grey of the morning, we had to wade off, nearly up to our hips in water, to load the skiff with the wood by armsfull.

   1840, R[ichard] H[enry] D[ana], Jr., chapter XXVI, in Two Years before the Mast. […] (Harper’s Family Library; no. CVI), New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers […], →OCLC, page 286

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   [I]t was thus the passion of Mr. Panton allayed its overflowings: for very shortly after his marriage, he again fell passionately in love with another lady; a bona roba Queen, the full head taller than himself, and more than an armfull.

   1812, Kate Mont Albion [pseudonym; Catharine Bayley], A Set-down at Court; […] In Four Volumes, volume I, London: […] Allen & Co., […], →OCLC, pages 30–31

   They then brought up a part of the board fence of the Convent lands, the fence wood was laid on the tar barrels, to make a bonfire, to raise an alarm of fire, and collect a greater number of people, there was a steady stream of people coming up with armsfull of the fence to feed the bonfire, I have no doubt that the tall man I saw is the prisoner at the bar.

   1834, Trial of John R. Buzzell, the Leader of the Convent Rioters, for Arson and Burglary, Boston: Lemuel Gulliver, page 11

   Therefore the Secretary of War (I remember he was a little man) went and fetched a large armfull of books, and looked, and did not find my father’s name; he went and fetched another armfull of books, and soon found my father’s name, and said if I was the only heir of my father, I could get the land.

   1848, United States Congressional Serial Set Volume 525: House of Representatives. Report No. 350., page 2

   While this interesting operation is proceeding, red postmen in waiting are carrying off in armfulls all approved letters to two other tables, at which, if possible with still greater celerity, their stamps are obliterated by the right-hands of twenty stampers, who from long practice in their regicidal duty can destroy from 6000 to 7000 Queen’s heads in an hour, or, for a short time, 140 per minute!

   1857, Francis Bond Head, Descriptive Essays Contributed to the Quarterly Review, volume II, London: John Murray, page 297

   “‘Just so. The world is God’s garden, and the people His flowers: white and yellow.’ But Mahnaht (the devil) comes in with his legion, and pulls them here—there—armfull after armfull, saying I’ll have all the red, and all the yellow, to keep my fires burning. But God says, “No! You shall not destroy my flowers.”’

   1859, Mrs. Macleod Wylie, The Gospel in Burmah, page 324