holeful

plural holefuls · plural holesful

1. As much as fills a hole.

   One of the women was down washing clothes in that holeful of water.

   1988, Muriel Marshall, Red Hole in Time, page 240

   3 more examples

   At this very instant while she was recalling a lifetime of work, Mr. Greenleaf was loitering in the woods and Mrs. Greenleaf was probably flat on the ground, asleep over her holeful of clippings.

   1956, Flannery O'Connor, “Greenleaf”, in The Kenyon Review, volume 18, number 3, page 408

   When Red and the professor got out to slide the heavy disk back into place they discovered a holeful of angry, baleful eyes looking up at them.

   1966, E. L. Doctorow, Big as Life, page 21

   Serene Pugwash Pond was a three acre holeful of water, having been formed in loose till by a chunk of ice left in the wake of receding glaciers.

   2014, S. Dorman, Maine Metaphor: The Green and Blue House, →ISBN

comparative more holeful · superlative most holeful

1. Filled with holes; holey.

   A body covered by a holeful rag Shoots out an odour more unwelcome Than the one of cattle dung grund

   1992, Writers Advisory Services International - Volume 3, Issue 3, page 81

   2 more examples

   When at last Mr. Alderman Flapp emerged, swathed in a comforter and in a flowing self-consciousness of equity, Mr. Flipp approached on the tips of his holeful boots, and whispered, "I am the dirty crossing-man; are you the dirty crossing-boy?" — and in another moment they were locked in each others' arms.

   1925, Eustace Clare Grenville Murray, Strange Tales, page 18

   Much of this squary-holeful architecture, seems to me clumsy and dwarfy, full of the defects of Egyptian buildings but wanting their grandeur.

   1989, Vidya Dehejia, Edward Lear, Allen Staley, Impossible Picturesqueness: Edward Lear's Indian Watercolours, 1873-1875, pages 66–67