handbagful

English

Etymology

From handbag +‎ -ful.

Noun

handbagful (plural handbagsful)

1. As much as a handbag will hold.
   • 1895 March, Charles Edwardes, “The Comrie Case”, in Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly, volume XXXIX, number 3, page 354, column 2:

     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.

   • 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:

     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.

   • 1992, New Statesman Society, volume 5, page 32, column 3:

     “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.

   • 1996 April 28, “Movie week with Jonathan Richards: Old gay times”, in Wales on Sunday, page 22:

     Cue handbagsful of oh-so-unfunny cross dressing jokes, triple-entendres and more screeching at Windsor Safari Park.

   • 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:

     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.