Carful

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    As much as a car will hold. (Usually with reference to an automobile; sometimes with reference to a railroad car, especially in 19th-century texts.)

    "Tourists were arriving by the carful."

  2. 2
    the quantity that a car will hold wordnet

Example

More examples

"Tourists were arriving by the carful."

Etymology

From Middle English carful (“cartful”), equivalent to car + -ful. Shift in meaning follows that of "cart" to modern senses of car. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Koareful (“a cartful”), West Frisian karfol (“a cartful”), German Karrevoll (“a cartful”).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.