rowboatful

plural rowboatfuls · plural rowboatsful

1. Enough to fill a rowboat.

   During a recent midwestern flood, CBS' Edward R. Murrow reports, a rowboatful of volunteer rescue workers spied a man perched atop an almost completely submerged Tin Lizzie, crying, "Help! Help!"

   1954, Eddie Davis, Laugh Yourself Well: A Merry Mixture of Medical Mirth, page 46

   2 more examples

   There were a few other families also picnicking and a rowboatful of young people in bathing suits were amusing themselves, sometimes rowing and sometimes stopping to dive out of the boat and climb back again amid cheerful shrieks and laughter.

   1950, Southwest Review - Volumes 35-36, page 166

   Since that tumultuous evening in 1958, the British public has been treated to many wonderful sights: parades at Easter time from Trafalgar Square to the nuclear laboratories at Alder- maston, the Labour party torn in two by a vigorous ban-the-bomb movement, defiant rowboatfuls of young pacifists at the Holy Loch, Bertrand Russell squatting in front of the Ministry of Defence and going to jail for his trouble.

   1963, World, page 30