pailful

American  

[peyl-fool] / ˈpeɪlˌfʊl /

noun

plural

pailfuls

1. a quantity sufficient to fill a pail.

   a pailful of water.

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Spelling

See -ful.

Etymology

Origin of pailful

First recorded in 1585–95; pail + -ful

Example Sentences

“Pope!” she whispered again, and it was as though he had had a pailful of ordure thrown in his face.

From "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley

The convicts who wished to make themselves thoroughly clean, could for two kopecks buy another pailful, which the proprietor handed to them through a window pierced in the wall for that purpose.

From The House of the Dead or Prison Life in Siberia with an introduction by Julius Bramont by Dostoyevsky, Fyodor

Would you not like to see Professor Plücker, with his trowsers duly tucked up, washing his feet in a pailful of this very soothing fluid?

From Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. V, October, 1850, Volume I. by

A few days after Ninnie-Dinnie had brought the pailful of sunbeams, she again asked to go with Tom over the moors, and Tom willingly took her.

From The Piskey-Purse Legends and Tales of North Cornwall by Tregarthen, Enys

From one pailful she picked out a little flat stone, rectangular and smoother and more evenly proportioned than any stone she had ever seen.

From Atlantic Narratives Modern Short Stories by Ashe, Elizabeth