combful

Noun

combful (plural combfuls or combsful)

1. Enough to fill a comb (toothed implement).
   • Lucilla remained standing before the glass, arranging her wind-tossed hair; and, in her vehemence, tearing out combfuls, as she pulled petulantly against the tangled curls.1860, [Charlotte Mary Yonge], chapter V, in Hopes and Fears; or, Scenes from the Life of a Spinster, volume I, London: John W. Parker and Son, […], page 240
   • Is your hair coming out by great combsful? Every combful causing a pang of fear for the future.1906 April 13, “Dandruff”, in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, volume 58, number 235, St. Louis, Mo., page 7
2. Enough to fill a honeycomb.
   • If I were to order a small swarm of Ligurians, and on arrival give them half-a-dozen combfuls of brood, but clear of bees, from as many hives, of course they would do well;[…]1879 April 1, H. M. S., “Queries and Replies”, in Charles Nash Abbott, editor, The British Bee Journal, and Bee-Keeper’s Adviser, volume VI, number 72, Southall: […] the Office […]; London: Kent and...
   • The very few fertile workers we have been troubled with have never laid ‘several combsful of eggs, two or three in every cell,’ as yours did, but just a few in scattered cells here and there, two or three in a cell.1890 June 5, Editor, “Bees in Malta”, in Thos. Wm. Cowan, W. Broughton Carr, editors, The British Bee Journal, Bee-Keepers’ Record and Adviser, volume XVIII, number 415, London: […] Simpkin...