Skip to content
ontologydriven
Sign out

Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

beamful en · ADJ · etymology 1

Etymology

From beam + -ful.

Meanings

  1. Beamy; radiant; luminous.
    • I can recall the tall, slender man-boy, with the large beamful eyes, soft brown beard and moustache, long swinging stride, careless dress, lounging habits, and incessant oratory. 2001, Meg Tasker, Struggle and storm: the life and death of Francis Adams, page 57:
    • And Monsieur Le Donkey's pleased beam is twice as beamful as it was over the stage business with the sauce. 1941, George Jean Nathan, The bachelor life, page 120:
    • Let each succeeding page Still boast those charms, and luminate the age; So shall thy beamful fires with light divine, Rise to the sphere, and there triumphant shine. 1929, Walter Jerrold, Clare Armstrong Bridgman Jerrold, Five Queer Women, page 236:

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
most beamful Degree=Sup lexicographic
more beamful Degree=Cmp lexicographic

beamful en · NOUN · etymology 2

Etymology

From beam + -ful.

Meanings

  1. A quantity in a beam (of wood, of light, etc)
    • A rider on a horse approaches: a torch attached to saddle or bridle illuminates a beamful of plummeting needles of rain, as if to reveal them rather than clarify the way forward for the rider. 2011, Tim Pears, Landed, page 205:
    • He set off to get some words take some mysteries: he cut a field of reindeer open a big beamful of squirrels; from there he got many words— all of them useless. 2008, Elias Lönnrot, The Kalevala:
    • Susan committed those confused, tragic eyes of hers to me, fixing on rhy stare, perhaps for some optical beamful of compassion. 1981, National Lampoon - Volume 2, Issues 30-41, page 184:
    • Phialai of similar size would be divided into convenient " beamfuls " or weighing-lots. 1944, Hesperia, page 186:
    • Behind the olde worlde postcard village, the timbers are rotting away by the beamful and the corpses are piling up. 2006, Lisa Selvidge, The Trials of Tricia Blake, page 9:

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
beamfuls Number=Plur lexicographic