armful

Syllables: arm·ful/ˈɑːmfl̩//ˈɑɹmˌfəl/

armful noun: the amount an arm or arms can hold.

Image: MCCS Spike Call, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

armful (plural armfuls or armsful or armsfuls)

The amount an arm or arms can hold.
- [T]ake three or four good arms full of muckle Straw, Hay, or Fern, not too wet, not to dry, and obſerving which ſide of the Orchard the Wind blows on, then laying a good armful of muckle in three or four places according to the bigneſs of your Orchard, then get ſome dry ſticks, and having kindled...1670, [Joseph Blagrave], “How to Order an Orchard that It shall Never Misse Bearing”, in New Additions to the Art of Husbandry. …, London: […] Benjamin Billingsley, […], →OCLC, page 45
- Upon this, by Conſent, the Doctors put a Good Armful of Warm Womans Fleſh into the Bed to him, [...]1692, Roger L’Estrange, “[The Fables of Abstemius, &c.] Fab[le] CCLXXXI. A Sick Hermit.”, in Fables, of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists: […], London: […] R[ichard] Sare, […], →OCLC, page 245

[T]hough Pyrocles and Muſidorus at other times would diſpence with the length of the ſports, yet now, in reſpect of the armfuls of joys they were to expect in bed, they thought them tedious; [...]1724, R[ichard] B[ellings], “A Sixth Book to The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia”, in Philip Sidney, The Works of the Honourable Sir Philip...
We have here a handful—an armful would be nearer the truth—on poems on scriptural and sacred subjects.1837 July 1, “Our Library Table”, in The Athenæum: Journal of Literature, Science, and the Fine Arts, number 505, London: […] J[ohn]...
Armful after armful was hastily stacked, the only pause being when (in the curious way in which these things happen) my own name suddenly caught the eye of the foreman.1919 November 20, A[lan] A[lexander] Milne, “My Library”, in Not That It Matters, New York, N.Y.: E[dward] P[ayson] Dutton & Company […]...
I left the plane with two armfuls of groceries, a gun, searchlight, and other things.1943 September, “Tokyo Bomber Hero is Italian Prisoner”, in George Starr Lasher, editor, The Rattle of Theta Chi, volume XXXII, number 1...

From arm + -ful (suffix forming nouns indicating as much as can be held by the noun to which it is attached).

What does armful mean?: Armful means the amount an arm or arms can hold.
What is armful in Pashto?: Armful in Pashto is غېږ (ǧeǵ). See Armful meaning in Pashto.
How do you use armful in a sentence?: [T]hough Pyrocles and Muſidorus at other times would diſpence with the length of the ſports, yet now, in reſpect of the armfuls of joys they were to expect in bed, they thought them tedious; [...]
What part of speech is armful?: Armful is a noun.
How do you pronounce armful?: Armful is pronounced /ˈɑɹmˌfəl/ (US).
What is the plural of armful?: The plural of armful is armfuls.

Adapted from Wiktionary: armful (page history and authors); غېږ (Pashto) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-armful.mp3, LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-armful.wav.

Cite this entry: “armful.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/armful. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.