quiverful

English

Etymology

quiver +‎ -ful

Noun

quiverful (plural quiverfuls or quiversful)

1. The amount held by a quiver
   • 1904, Charles Egbert Craddock, The Frontiersmen‎^[1]:

     In the presence of the two delegations the mediating Governor had taken an arrow and shown them with what ease it could be broken; then how impossible he found it to break a quiverful of arrows, thus demonstrating the strength in union.

   • 1911, Jack London, Adventure‎^[2]:

     Long-hafted, slender, bone-barbed throwing-spears lay along the gunwale of the canoe, while a quiverful of arrows hung on each man's back.

2. A large amount.
   • 1909, Agnes Deans Cameron, The New North‎^[3]:

     The farm of Sheridan Lawrence, exhibiting its wide-stretching wheat-fields, some heads of which counted seventy-one kernels, with its patches of one-pound potatoes, twelve-foot sunflowers, and its quiverful of happy, tow-headed children, gives as sweet a picture of Canadian thrift and happiness as one would wish to see.

Related terms

• Quiverfull