threadful

plural threadfuls

1. The amount that a thread will hold.

   Alas, my friend ! the Fates here spun thy threadful ! Sure, never yet was heard a case so dreadful.

   1826, Traditions and Recollections

   2 more examples

   "When these beads are worn out ... so that they cannot be strung neatly and evenly on the thread, they no longer consider them as good. Their way of trying them is to rub the whole threadful on their noses; if they find it full and even, like glass beads, then they are considered good, otherwise they break and throw them away.

   1884, Ernest Ingersoll, Country Cousins: Short Studies in the Natural History of the United States, page 235

   The bottom of the thread is tapered so that, after the screw has "taken its bite," the volume increases as the threadful advances, and the flow to the pipe is free and easy in consequence.

   1920, Cecil Frederic Herington, Powdered Coal as a Fuel, page 116