gaolful

plural gaolfuls

1. CommonwealthDated spelling of jailful.

   Besides, when Dr. Martineau compares Christ’s substitution to the substitution of a noble citizen in the room of gaolfuls of felons, he excites a prejudice against the Atonement by a false analogy.

   1901, Marcus Dods, chapter IX, in The Atonement in Modern Religious Thought. A Theological Symposium., New York, N.Y.: Thomas Whittaker, page 191

   2 more examples

   It is impossible to picture civilised, stable, progressive government in the country, side by side with military occupation, gaolfuls of prisoners, periodical destruction of transport, and the ever present fear of the assassin.

   1986, J. Anthony Gaughan, Alfred O’Rahilly II: Public Figure, Kingdom Books, →ISBN, page 184

   ‘We like the longer-servers, with the one offence behind them—that is,’ she said to me, ‘your poisoners, your vitriol-throwers, your child-murderers, that the magistrates have turned kind on and kept from the rope. Had we a gaolful of such women, we might send our matrons home and let the convicts lock themselves up.[…]’

   1999, Sarah Waters, Affinity, page 15