Cradleful
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A number of babies that lies in a cradle.
"It seems she churns the butter with one foot and rocks a cradleful of twins with the other; with her hands she knits socks for her husband; on her knee rests a book from which she is improving her mind."
- 2 A quantity of mined earth that is washed at one time in a cradle.
"What, haven't you heard? it is your friend Jem! he has got a slice of luck, bought a hole of a stranger, saw the stuff glitter, so offered him thirty pounds he was green and snapped at it; and if Jem didn't wash four ounces out the first cradleful I'm a Dutchman."
- 3 A quantity of something that is newly born or created.
"...so we shall justify the argument of Mr. Dooley, who said, in reviewing "The Jungle," that he could not see how it was any less a crime to cut off a young tomato in its prime, or to murder a whole cradleful of baby peas in the pod!"
Example
More examples"It seems she churns the butter with one foot and rocks a cradleful of twins with the other; with her hands she knits socks for her husband; on her knee rests a book from which she is improving her mind."
Etymology
From cradle + -ful.
More for "cradleful"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.