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Showing results for thimbleful. Search instead for tumblerful.

thimbleful

American  
[thim-buhl-fool] / ˈθɪm bəlˌfʊl /

noun

  • thimblefuls
    plural
  1. the amount that a thimble will hold.

  2. a small quantity, especially of liquid.


thimbleful British  
/ ˈθɪmbəlˌfʊl /

noun

  1. a very small amount, esp of a liquid

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Spelling

See -ful.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

Etymology

Origin of thimbleful

First recorded in 1600–10; thimble + -ful

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

Microbiologists began by isolating the microbial DNA in a thimbleful of soil to see what genes and species were in the sample.

From Science Magazine Jul. 12, 2021

Yes, there are people whose skills in planning combine with their access to resources and they manage waste down to a monthly thimbleful.

From The Guardian Aug. 19, 2019

These 10 wines represent a mere thimbleful of the rosés produced in the United States each year.

From New York Times Jul. 5, 2018

Our only complaint: the tiny thimbleful of guacamole.

From Washington Post Sep. 10, 2015

Then flash to the people behind the football field fence so desperate for water that they would sell their souls for a thimbleful.

From "Dry" by Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman

He left so few paintings – not more than 120 over a 40-year career – it is rightly said that he measured out his genius in thimblefuls.

From The Guardian Jan. 3, 2016

The idea was to re-create the kind of old-fashioned Milanese bar that might have served the distillery workers pasticceria and thimblefuls of espresso in the 1950s.

From The Wall Street Journal Nov. 5, 2015

Watch five minutes of a remote-control back loader shifting two thimblefuls of earth across a hole, and all that will change.

From The Guardian Jul. 2, 2015

Max-Planck-Institute EVA For their DNA study, researchers used thimblefuls of powdered bone extracted from these three Neanderthal bones found in the Vindija cave.

From The Wall Street Journal May 7, 2010

And between the good and the bad there were others, moments colored not so much by fear or danger but by tiny heartbreaks, thimblefuls of betrayal.

From "Out of Darkness" by Ashley Hope Pérez

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