bedful

English

Etymology

From bed +‎ -ful.

Noun

bedful (plural bedfuls or bedsful)

1. The amount that can fit in a bed.
   • 1926, The Outlook - Volume 144, page 335:

     He and Bob in one low bed and Tom and Joe in the other—one bedful used to be jealous of the other bedful if it had more snow on its blue-and-white coverlet in the morning.

   • 1950, Time - Volume 56, page 82:

     In a bedful of petunias, a hollow groan.

   • 1967, John William De Forest, James Bascom Durham, The Complete Short Stories of John William De Forest:

     "It looked like a bedful of the plant, I acknowledge." "A bedful: yes, sir, six bedfuls! "

   • 1994, Michael Palin, The Weekend, page 4:

     Were you to have possessed the merest smattering of knowledge about this primary and basic economic tenet you would not have thrown over two bedsful of perfectly good French marigolds and gone over to intensive radish farming!

   • 1997, Kaye Gibbons, A Virtuous Woman: A Novel:

     Jack would wake me up in the middle of the night and tell me to go in there and look at the baby asleep in a bedful of dogs.

2. A sexual encounter.
   • 1948, Collier's: Incorporating Features of the American Magazine, page 133:

     Nothing but an opium dream could transform the bare walls and the dirty cotton curtains into an Oriental palace with silken drapes and bedfuls of lovely daughters of the East.

   • 2009, Ted Olson, Anthony P. Cavender, A Tennessee Folklore Sampler:

     I recently heard in reference to a newly married couple: “Them two'll make pert near a bedful.”

   • 2012, John Lawton, Second Violin:

     On the plus side, being back in Stepney meant well-rounded platefuls of his wife's cooking and a well-rounded bedful of his well-rounded wife.