shoulderful
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
English
[edit]Etymology 1
[edit]Noun
[edit]shoulderful (plural shoulderfuls or shouldersful)
- As much as can be carried on one's shoulder.
- 1998, Brandweek - Volume 39, Issues 9-17:
- As he walks down the hall to meet a group of businessmen, this corporate secret service uses code ling and the phones' two-way radio feature to head off potential snafus, such as toilet paper trailing from his wing tips and "snow on the mountains" (a shoulderful of dandruff), while he's unaware in a Mr. Magoo sort of way of the action surrounding him.
- 2008, Hester Browne, The Little Lady Agency in the Big Apple, page 214:
- Before I could give him a brisk lecture about how making an effort for an hour could help his career no end, a large man with two shouldersful of bags hoved into view.
- 2015, David Margolis, Change Partners:
- He could get a shoulderful of one-by-sixes off the lumber pile and carry them up to the cabin site.
- 2018, Steven Barnes, Streetlethal:
- She hefted two small packages, sighed with disgust, and shifted the lot in her arms, finding room for another shoulderful.
- As much as can be worn on the shoulder.
- 1989, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, Crisis, page 12:
- With a shoulderful of medals, he returns home after nine years, ready to put down his guns and find some kind of normalcy.
- 2012, Frances Osborne, Park Lane:
- Don't travel on it then, she was told in the boarding house, or you'll find yourself jammed in, breathing shoulderfuls of damp tweed.
- An amount that reaches as high as the shoulder.
- 1939, New Catholic World - Volume 148, page 416:
- Sacramento River flowing circuitously below high crimson banks and a splendid view of America's only volcano (whose last eruption occurred as recently as 1914), rising steeply out of the level valley and hoisting a shoulderful of superb colors against the sky.
- As much as a metaphoric shoulder can handle.
- 1958, Stewart Sterling, Dead to the World, page 52:
- Gent who was with her had a shoulderful of chips, for no apparent reason.
- 2001, Bart Wheeler, Barn-Like Rome, page 142:
- The new regime allowed for an incredible latitude of flexibility but also an equal shoulderful of additional responsibility.
Etymology 2
[edit]Adjective
[edit]shoulderful (comparative more shoulderful, superlative most shoulderful)
- (not comparable) Filled as far as the shoulder (of a container)
- Having large, muscular shoulders.
- 1930, Lucy Lockwood Hazard, In Search of America, page 572:
- Small, dogged, shoulderful, they come headed America-ward.
- 2016, Daniel Jose Older, Midnight Taxi Tango:
- Golden brown shoulders bulge out of that sleeveless shirt in a way that's almost profane, like just sitting there, being all burly and shoulderful in front of a group of teenagers seems somehow inappropriate.