handful

American  

[hand-fool] / ˈhænd fʊl /

noun

handfuls plural

1. the quantity or amount that the hand can hold.

   a handful of coins.

2. a small amount, number, or quantity.

   a handful of men.

3. Informal. a person or thing that is as much as one can manage or control.

   The baby's tantrums made him a handful.

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handful British  

/ ˈhændfʊl /

noun

1. the amount or number that can be held in the hand

2. a small number or quantity

3. informal a person or thing difficult to manage or control

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Spelling

See -ful.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• handfuls
  plural

Etymology

Origin of handful

before 900; Middle English, Old English. See hand, -ful

Explanation

A handful is just a little of something, or the amount you can hold in your hand. It can be a literal handful, like a handful of popcorn, or it can mean just a few, like a handful of trucks. You might find yourself eating handfuls of raspberries when you're supposed to be picking them to make jam. Another meaning of handful is "just a few," as in "There are only a handful of dogs at the dog park this morning." And a third way to use this word is to mean "incredibly difficult to handle." If your mom says, "You were a handful when you were a toddler," she means you were not easy.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

handful handfuls

On Friday, Elon Musk’s space-technology company launched its megarocket for the 13th time, after a handful of delays had pushed the mission back by about a week.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 27, 2026

Earlier this year, a handful of West Virginia legislators pushed to add some “bumpers” to the program to safeguard public funds.

From Salon ● Jul. 27, 2026

This hidden genetic diversity may help explain how a population founded by only a handful of snakes survived intense inbreeding, adapted to Guam, and expanded so dramatically.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 26, 2026

When OpenAI’s models started targeting Hugging Face on a weekend, one of the first warnings the company got was from a handful of AI agents it uses to patrol for attacks.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026

He had round glasses, and he was lean, sharp rather than soft, with heavy eyebrows and a handful of freckles.

From "Bye Forever, I Guess" by Jodi Meadows

"We call it rotting out," says Fererro, now wearing a white laboratory coat as he adds handfuls of seagrass to the Calshot tank.

From BBC ● Jul. 20, 2026

Other nights I raid the freezer for peas and carrots, handfuls of spinach or little nuggets of sweet potato in the middle of winter.

From Salon ● Jul. 4, 2026

Workers bend the branches down with a hook-shaped tool made of PVC pipe, helping people reach handfuls of cherries.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 19, 2026

Mourners on this occasion are invited to cast Lizzie’s stones into the ocean, and handfuls of her ashes go in, too.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 23, 2026

So she reached down and started smearing handfuls of mud across her body.

From "The Wild Robot Escapes" by Peter Brown