shoulderful en · NOUN · etymology 1
Etymology
From shoulder + -ful.
Meanings
-
As much as can be carried or worn on one's shoulder.
With a shoulderful of medals, he returns home after nine years, ready to put down his guns and find some kind of normalcy.
1989, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, Crisis, page 12:He could get a shoulderful of one-by-sixes off the lumber pile and carry them up to the cabin site.
2015, David Margolis, Change Partners:Before I could give him a brisk lecture about how making an effort for an hour could help his career no end, a large man with two shouldersful of bags hoved into view.
2008, Hester Browne, The Little Lady Agency in the Big Apple, page 214:As he walks down the hall to meet a group of businessmen, this corporate secret service uses code ling and the phones' two-way radio feature to head off potential snafus, such as toilet paper trailing from his wing tips and "snow on the mountains" (a shoulderful of dandruff), while he's unaware in a Mr. Magoo sort of way of the action surrounding him.
1998, Brandweek - Volume 39, Issues 9-17:She hefted two small packages, sighed with disgust, and shifted the lot in her arms, finding room for another shoulderful.
2018, Steven Barnes, Streetlethal:Don't travel on it then, she was told in the boarding house, or you'll find yourself jammed in, breathing shoulderfuls of damp tweed.
2012, Frances Osborne, Park Lane:
-
An amount that reaches as high as the shoulder.
Sacramento River flowing circuitously below high crimson banks and a splendid view of America's only volcano (whose last eruption occurred as recently as 1914), rising steeply out of the level valley and hoisting a shoulderful of superb colors against the sky.
1939, New Catholic World - Volume 148, page 416:
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As much as a metaphoric shoulder can handle; a personal burden.
Gent who was with her had a shoulderful of chips, for no apparent reason.
1958, Stewart Sterling, Dead to the World, page 52:The new regime allowed for an incredible latitude of flexibility but also an equal shoulderful of additional responsibility.
2001, Bart Wheeler, Barn-Like Rome, page 142:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| shouldersful | Number=Plur | lexicographic | |
| shoulderfuls | Number=Plur | lexicographic |