Dictionary

shirtful en · NOUN

Etymology

From shirt + -ful.

Meanings

1. As much as is within, on, or held by a shirt.
   • Cabrini Project kids bail it back with their hands, soak up shirtsful. 1989, Dennis Schmitz, Eden: poems, page 22:
   • Holy Moses, Mr. Reilly, but you had a narrow escape, Devil a man in the barony can handle a cudgel as I can, and it was a miracle, and you may thank his lordship here for it that you hadn't a shirtful of sore bones. 2018, William Carleton, Willy Reilly, page 196:
   • Calvin lays the shirtful of skunk on the ground and holds it with his foot. 2002, Wilmoth Foreman, Summer of the Skunks, page 34:
   • It was not quite enough time to tackle the wood-fired bathtub contraption, but it was plenty enough to motor up a long, winding hill to the north, where almost a year before we'd found hatfuls and shirtfuls of morel mushrooms with Erik's friend Breakfast. 2013, Ben Hewitt, Saved: How I Quit Worrying about Money and Became the Richest Guy in the World:
   • I watched him until he disappeared from view, and then thought I would open up the treasure I had buried and deposit some of the shirtful which he had so kindly given me after I had robbed him. 1892, George T. Ulmer, Adventures and Reminiscences of a Volunteer: A Drummer Boy From Maine:

Forms