biteful

English

Etymology

From bite +‎ -ful.

Noun

biteful (plural bitefuls or bitesful)

1. The amount eaten in a single bite.
   • 1961 March 1, “Clean-Plate Club poor nutritionally”, in Mason City Globe-Gazette, volume 99, Mason City, Iowa, page 17:

     How many times have you eaten the last two bitesful when you actually did not want them?

   • 1964 May 13, “Stop-n-Shop Produce … Best Because It’s “Triple-Checked”: 24 Karat Golden Corn… like buried treasure”, in The Sacramento Bee, volume 214, number 34,812, Sacramento, Calif., page F-9:

     This corn is as sweet as sweet corn gets . . . big plump ears, with juice-packed kernels . . . row after row of blissful bitesful.

   • 1974, Richard Olney, Simple French Food, 40th anniversary edition, New York, N.Y.: Collier Books, published 1992, →ISBN, page 115:

     […] the ritual aspect is attractive and the individual may, dipping first in one, then in the other, season to taste, biteful by biteful.

   • 1978 May 25, Lorrie Guttman, “Cookoff judges face feast of dairy foods”, in Tallahassee Democrat, 73rd year, number 144, page 1E:

     Working independently, each made her way from the main dishes through the desserts, sampling only a few bitesful from each.

   • 1981 May 24, John Eberline, “The Man on the Corner”, in South Idaho Press, volume 77, number 46, Burley, Ida., page 4:

     Those underlings at the SIP and the sacrifices the Associated Press sent to The Man on the Corner know the meaning of losing weight in large bitesful.

   • 1982, Joan Brady, The Unmaking of a Dancer: An Unconventional Life, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Row, →ISBN, page 48:

     My mother made broth and milk toast and custard and fed my father biteful by biteful.

   • 1984, Lima Ohsawa, Macrobiotic Cuisine, Japan Publications, Inc., →ISBN, page 23:

     Begin your meal with soup and/or a few bitefuls of grain, then alternate grain with the most yang food before you.

   • 1994 February 16, Joe Crea, “A Smorgasbord Of Flavors”, in The Home News, page D1:

     “In Scandinavia, only after the cow has given her life to the dairy industry does she actually make it to the table,” an agriculture official apologetically said as several of us nearly bent our knives trying to whittle bitesful from oversized and unfortunately tough pieces of beef.

   • 1995 May 21, Jean Martin, “It happened in the month of May”, in The Selma Times-Journal, Selma, Ala., page B2:

     Never have I seen such a collation as was spread before us. (That’s Victorian for a plethora of gorgeous bitesful of sweets).

   • 1999, Jill Shalvis, Who’s the Boss?, Harlequin, →ISBN, page 124:

     “You know,” she mumbled around a huge, heavenly biteful, “I’ve been everywhere in this world. I’ve eaten at the most amazing places.” She smiled at Amy’s curious face. “But nothing has tasted as good as this.”

   • 2005, Sarah-Kate Lynch, Eating with The Angels, Doubleday, →ISBN, pages 253 and 271:

     I was halfway through the first biteful of the most perfectly cooked piece of coconut-and-lime marinated cod when this thought struck me. […] I savoured each biteful, imagining as much as I could, then swallowing with a gulp and feeling the berry mash slide down my throat.