handful
- 1The quantity that one hand can grasp or hold at a single time.
She scooped up a handful of dry rice and let it fall back into the sack.
The child clutched a handful of coins in his small fist.
Similarfistful
Note
The literal sense the others grow from: Old English handfull, simply hand plus full, the same pattern later carried by the suffix -ful. The usual plural is handfuls, which treats the compound as one word. Handsful also exists, pluralizing the hand instead. Richard Steele, writing in The Spectator in 1712, has a boy who 'stole a handful' of oatmeal. The measure is whatever the hand itself can hold.
- 2A small number of something, usually around five.
A handful of investors controlled most of the company's shares.
Only a handful of survivors remained after the long winter.
Note
A vague number that can behave like a plural. Thomas Fuller wrote in 1655 that 'this handful of men were tied to very hard duty', letting the men govern the verb rather than the handful. The phrase to name but a handful closes a list modestly, as in Rodger Bradley's Amtrak (1985), and signals that more examples exist. Beside a few, a handful suggests a group small enough to count on one hand.
- 3A group or number of things gathered together; a bunch.
She tied a handful of herbs together and hung them to dry.
A handful of bright ribbons decorated the wrapped gift.
Note
Less a count than a loose bunch, and it readily becomes an adverbial phrase. Emma Jane Worboise's Sir Julian's Wife (1866) has a girl who 'dropped her h's by handfuls', carelessly and in quantity. Here the word stresses plenty, pulling the other way from the "only a few" sense, so context decides whether a handful means many or few.
- 4A person or thing that can only be managed with difficulty.
The toddler proved to be a handful during the long flight.
Looking after five energetic kids at once is a handful for any teacher.
Similarterror, nightmare, challenge
Note
A casual way to call someone or something hard work, and it rarely appears bare. It usually comes with an intensifier or a measuring frame, as in a real handful to look after or more and more of a handful. Adjectives can also stack in front, as in Dog Fancy's 'a 100 lb untrained handful'. It is not only for children and pets: G. Freeman Allen in Trains Illustrated (1959) used it of rolling stock too heavy for small engines.
- 5A prison sentence lasting five years.
After the trial, she was looking at a handful behind bars.
He'd already done one handful before this latest arrest.
Note
Prison slang that turns a count of fingers into years, building on the "about five" sense. Because it is slang, it only works where speaker and listener share the code. In ordinary speech, 'he got a handful' will likely be heard as a small number of something. In formal or legal writing, say five years instead.
Less common meaning
- 6A unit of length equal to the breadth of a hand; four inches.
The carpenter trimmed the board a handful shorter to fit the frame.
Knap the tongs together about a handful from the bottom.
1627, Francis [Bacon], Sylua SyluarumNote
A measure of length that has dropped out of the language. Francis Bacon could write in 1627 of knapping tongs together 'about a handful from the bottom', meaning a distance and not a quantity. Modern readers will take the word as an amount held, so outside historical writing it reads as a mistake. Recognize it in old texts and explain it there, but do not use it to measure anything today.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English handful, from Old English handfull, from Proto-Germanic *handufullō, built from the roots for "hand" (*handuz) and "full" (*fullaz). It is equivalent to hand + full, and is related to Dutch handvol, German Handvoll, and Swedish handfull.