Handbagful

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    As much as a handbag will hold.

    "One morning, when I had been only two years in the service, news came that Mr. Comrie had been found dead in his library, and that about a handbagful of gems was missing."

Example

More examples

"One morning, when I had been only two years in the service, news came that Mr. Comrie had been found dead in his library, and that about a handbagful of gems was missing."

Etymology

From handbag + -ful.

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