flatful

English

Etymology

From flat +‎ -ful.

Noun

flatful (plural flatfuls or flatsful)

(UK) Enough to fill a flat (apartment).
- 1905 May 21, “Woes of Tax Assessor Many and Laughable. By a Deputy.”, in Worker’s Magazine: For the Man Who Works with Hand or Brain (The Sunday Plain Dealer), Cleveland, Oh., →OCLC, page [4], column 4:
  [S]he pointedly remarked that they had just moved to the city a month previous, that they were dissatisfied, and would return to Hoosierdom in June. I was completely taken in, and departed without making the assessment. However, when whole flatsful began to make similar explanations under similar circumstances, I awoke to the fact that I had been bluffed.
Enough to fill a flat (container).
- 1906 November, Samuel Armstrong Hamilton, “Potted Plants for Decoration in the Home”, in Herbert S[tuart] Stone, editor, The House Beautiful, Chicago, Ill.: The House Beautiful Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 44, column 2:
  When the first lot of cuttings has been taken from the flat clean out the flat, using new sand for the next lot; never use sand twice. It must not be supposed that all will go as swimmingly as it reads, as there is a disease that young cuttings, known as “cutting-bench fungus,” which sweeps whole flatfuls away in a single day.
- 1949, Norvell Gillespie, “How to Grow Tuberous Begonias”, in Pacific Coast Gardening Guide, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., →OCLC, page 149:
  [P]lant the tubers in flatfuls of one of the above mixtures right after the pink sprouts have appeared.
- 1976 May, Richard M[alcolm] Ketchum, editor, Blair & Ketchum’s Country Journal, volume III, number 5, Brattleboro, Vt.: Country Journal Publishing Co., Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 54, column 2:
  It is both irresponsible and greedy to dig up flatfuls of any wild plant. Take a little here and there, on level ground only, and always fill in the hole you’ve made with a generous pile of ground litter and leaves to prevent erosion and help the area restore itself.