HANDFUL

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does handful mean? 

• HANDFUL (noun)
  The noun HANDFUL has 2 senses:

1. a small number or amount

2. the quantity that can be held in the hand

  Familiarity information: HANDFUL used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• HANDFUL (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A small number or amount

Classified under:

Nouns denoting quantities and units of measure

Synonyms:

handful; smattering

Context example:

only a handful of responses were received

Hypernyms ("handful" is a kind of...):

small indefinite amount; small indefinite quantity (an indefinite quantity that is below average size or magnitude)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The quantity that can be held in the hand

Classified under:

Nouns denoting quantities and units of measure

Synonyms:

fistful; handful

Hypernyms ("handful" is a kind of...):

containerful (the quantity that a container will hold)

 Context examples 

With a handful of salt and a rifle he could plunge into the wilderness and fare wherever he pleased and as long as he pleased.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

Only 13 large eruptions were observed between 1978 and 2006, in part because only a handful of astronomers, de Pater among them, regularly scan the moon.

(A Hellacious Two Weeks on Jupiter's Moon Io, NASA)

She again gave him a handful of ducats, but he would not keep them, and gave them to the gardener for playthings for his children.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

"Wait till you've tried it yourself," he added in a low voice, as he pulled up the grass by the handful.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Immediately on recovering his clothes he had gone to see Ruth, and on the way he could not refrain from jingling the little handful of silver in his pocket.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

To thrust a handful of steel into the Socman.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Cassini has performed this sort of gravity science investigation with only a handful of Saturn's 62 known moons.

(Cassini to Make Last Close Flyby of Saturn Moon Dione, NASA)

It took two, or possibly three, handfuls before the lodger came to the window.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

There are only a handful of hydrogen-powered cars in Australia, but there are tens of thousands across Japan, South Korea and Singapore.

(Cars Powered by New Fuel Type Tested in Australia, VOA)

A molecular signature of IgE against a handful of allergens at ages 3-5 years predicted respiratory allergy with more than 90 per cent probability up to adolescence in the two geographically separate populations.

(New Approach to Predict Respiratory Allergy in Early Childhood, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)