holeful

English

Etymology 1

hole +‎ -ful

Noun

holeful (plural holefuls or holesful)

1. As much as fills a hole.
   • 1956, Flannery O'Connor, “Greenleaf”, in The Kenyon Review, volume 18, number 3, page 408:

     At this very instant while she was recalling a lifetime of work, Mr. Greenleaf was loitering in the woods and Mrs. Greenleaf was probably flat on the ground, asleep over her holeful of clippings.

   • 1966, E. L. Doctorow, Big as Life, page 21:

     When Red and the professor got out to slide the heavy disk back into place they discovered a holeful of angry, baleful eyes looking up at them.

   • 1988, Muriel Marshall, Red Hole in Time, page 240:

     One of the women was down washing clothes in that holeful of water.

   • 2014, S. Dorman, Maine Metaphor: The Green and Blue House, →ISBN:

     Serene Pugwash Pond was a three acre holeful of water, having been formed in loose till by a chunk of ice left in the wake of receding glaciers.

Etymology 2

hole +‎ -ful

Adjective

holeful (comparative more holeful, superlative most holeful)

1. Filled with holes; holey.
   • 1925, Eustace Clare Grenville Murray, Strange Tales, page 18:

     When at last Mr. Alderman Flapp emerged, swathed in a comforter and in a flowing self-consciousness of equity, Mr. Flipp approached on the tips of his holeful boots, and whispered, "I am the dirty crossing-man; are you the dirty crossing-boy?" — and in another moment they were locked in each others' arms.

   • 1989, Vidya Dehejia, Edward Lear, Allen Staley, Impossible Picturesqueness: Edward Lear's Indian Watercolours, 1873-1875, pages 66–67:

     Much of this squary-holeful architecture, seems to me clumsy and dwarfy, full of the defects of Egyptian buildings but wanting their grandeur.

   • 1992, Writers Advisory Services International - Volume 3, Issue 3, page 81:

     A body covered by a holeful rag Shoots out an odour more unwelcome Than the one of cattle dung grund