Dictionary

handbagful en · NOUN

Etymology

From handbag + -ful.

Meanings

1. As much as a handbag will hold.
   • One morning, when I had been only two years in the service, news came that Mr. Comrie had been found dead in his library, and that about a handbagful of gems was missing. 1895 March, Charles Edwardes, “The Comrie Case”, in Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly, volume XXXIX, number 3, page 354, column 2:
   • “I’m fucking hot,” says Sandra Bernhard in this month’s issue of Vanity Fair, as she poses in ostrich features and several handbagsful of costume jewellery for celebrity photographer Michel Comte. 1992, New Statesman Society, volume 5, page 32, column 3:
   • Then, Friday morning, Mr. Gumming and I, with three handbagsful, took the early train, prepared to do all honor to the man who was a very great patron of Buddhism and is now reverenced as one of the Shinto deities. […] The first day, there was not very much of a crowd, though we managed to get rid of two handbagsful of the tracts, but the second day, Saturday, things were certainly lively. 1915 August, L. C. M. Smythe, “Iyeyasu Sanbyakunen Sai”, in W. C. Smith, editor, The Missionary Survey, volume V, number 8, page 586, column 1:
   • Cue handbagsful of oh-so-unfunny cross dressing jokes, triple-entendres and more screeching at Windsor Safari Park. 1996 April 28, “Movie week with Jonathan Richards: Old gay times”, in Wales on Sunday, page 22:
   • On top of that I picked a handbagful of nettles in the gardens outside the ruined buildings, elegantly plucking them using the fishnet gloves I saved from my air-raid gear. 2005, anonymous author, “Thursday, 7 June 1945”, in Philip Boehm, transl., A Woman in Berlin: Diary 20 April 1945 to 22 June 1945, Virago Press, →ISBN, page 289:

Forms