pailful

plural pailfuls · plural pailsful · alternative paileful · alternative pailfull

1. The amount that fills, or would fill, a pail.First known use 16th c.

   Some say that instead of a bowl of milk on the table, it was a pailful on the kitchen-floor fresh from the cow.

   1896, Clifton Johnson, “Snakes”, in What They Say in New England (non-fiction), Boston, Massachusetts, United States: Lee and Shepard Publishers, page 99

   2 more examples

   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.

   1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii], page 9

   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.

   1952, Doris Lessing, Martha Quest, Panther, published 1974, page 118