ewerful

English

Etymology

From ewer +‎ -ful.

Noun

ewerful (plural ewerfuls or ewersful)

1. As much as a ewer will hold.
   • 1804 October 14, Alexander Knox, Remains of Alexander Knox, Esq., volume IV, London: James Duncan, published 1837, page 184:

     This is a wonderful place: a cream-ewerful skimmed off the great pan of London.

   • 1896, George Adam Smith, “The False Peace of Ritual: Amos iv. 4—vi.”, in The Book of the Twelve Prophets, Commonly Called the Minor (The Expositor’s Bible; edited by W[illiam] Robertson Nicoll), volumes I (Amos, Hosea and Micah), London: Hodder and Stoughton, pages 174–175:

     That lie on ivory diwans and sprawl on their couches—another luxurious custom, which filled this rude shepherd with contempt—and eat lambs from the flock and calves from the midst of the stall—that is, only the most delicate of meats—who prate or purr or babble to the sound of the viol, and as if they were David himself invent for them instruments of song; who drink wine by ewerfuls—waterpotfuls—and anoint with the finest of oils—yet never do they grieve at the havoc of Joseph!

   • 1929, New Outlook, page 185:

     Like many another genius he was also passionately fond of water. In the city he often recaptured inspiration by playing with a ewerful of it, pouring it over his hands and head.

   • 1990, Thomas Leiper Kane, Amharic-English Dictionary, volume I, Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, →ISBN, page 817:

     it [container] holds three ənsära-ewersful

   • 2004, Heskel M. Haddad, Born in Baghdad, Authors Choice Press, →ISBN:

     I gasped like someone wakened from a sleepwalk, as shocked as if the ewerful of water had struck my face instead of Kambar Ali Street.

   • 2018, Cidney Swanson, chapter 58, in A Thief in Time, →ISBN:

     He saw a future where he learned the art of brewing root beer and brought Halley root beer floats by the ewerful.

   • 2020, Lana Popović, Blood Countess, New York, N.Y.: Amulet Books, →ISBN:

     “It was actually Hippocrates, another Greek physician, who discovered the humors,” she tells me as I pour a ewerful of water over her hair, careful that it not sluice into her eyes.