gameful

/ˈɡeɪmfʊl/

gameful adjective: full of game (prey for a hunter).

Adjective

gameful (comparative more gameful, superlative most gameful)

(archaic) Full of game (prey for a hunter).
- For warlike Toil he leaves the gameful Wood, / And fleſht his Courage firſt in Saxon Blood.1695, Richard Blackmore, “Book IV”, in Prince Arthur. An Heroick Poem. […], 2nd edition, London: […] Awnsham and John Churchil […], →OCLC, page 110
- The condition of liberty not only covers the 'sandy Wilds' with 'yellow Harvests' (1.88) but also transforms the 'empty Wilds and Woods' to 'gameful Woods' (I. 95), and the tyrant hunter having become a prey, the liberated swain becomes a hunter.1978, The Visva-bharati Quarterly, page 181
Synonyms:

game-filled
Characteristic of prey; game-like.
- As such they not only made them the sport of the pulpit, which was become but a more solemn sort of stage; but every stage, and every table, and every puppet play, belched forth profane scoffs upon them; the drunkards made them their songs; all fiddlers and mimics learned to abuse them, as finding...1836, William Carpenter, The Life and Times of John Milton, page 26
- Unlike the red foxes these animals can, and often do, climb trees that are sufficiently inclined to warrant a foothold. And they also depend more upon their ability to hide when pursued than upon the more gameful tactics of track deception.1919, “Hunter-trader-trapper”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), volume 39, page 52
Having the characteristics of a game that can be played.
- Then time shall never grieve me, for by that vow, E'en absent I enjoy her, assuredly confirmed that none Else shall, which will make tedious years seem gameful To me.2014, Thomas Middleton, Alan Brissenden, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside
- How does one conduct research on gameful L2TL?2018, Jonathon Reinhardt, Gameful Second and Foreign Language Teaching and Learning
Pertaining to games.
- How can gameful designers incorporate meaningful, relevant realworld application into their gamified learning experiences?2014, Ryan Schaaf, Nicky Mohan, Making School a Game Worth Playing: Digital Games in the Classroom
- Incorporating gameful digital rhetoric into the real world contributes to enhancing the meaning of the real world if the gameful digital rhetoric is meaningful to people.2015, Norbert Streitz, Panos Markopoulos, Distributed, Ambient, and Pervasive Interactions, page 100

Noun

gameful (plural gamefuls)

A quantity found in a game.
- I LOVE MY ANTEATER WITH AN A and everything else absurd, bewitching, exotic, and zoo-phile-ic from A to Z in a gameful of laughter.1964, Top of the News - Volumes 21-22, page 15
- Bengston doing a roomful of painting is like Joe Willie Namath doing a gameful of curl patterns, Jason Robards doing an eveningful of O'Neill, Tina Turner doing a concertful of. . . . and so on.1974, Artforum - Volume 13, Issues 4-10, page 35

Examples of gameful in a sentence

Ye vig'rous Swains! while Youth ferments your Blood, And purer Spirits swell the sprightly Flood, Now range the Hills, the gameful Woods beset, Wind the shrill Horn, or spread the waving Net.1992, “Historical Reflections”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), volume 18, page 34:
One of the pistoleros went to her but not getting any reaction from an overly sleepy and disinterested passenger returned to more gameful victims.2011, John Guzman, Reflections Behind the Retina, page 76:
We acknowledge that sometimes playful activities occur within games and gameful activities are part of play.2018, Virkar, Shefali, Parycek, Peter, Edelmann, Noella, Proceedings of the International Conference EGOV-CeDEM-ePart 2018, page 239:
Seeking out and completing quests is just one of the seven gameful skills that will help you become stronger, happier, and braver in everyday life.2016, Jane McGonigal, SuperBetter:

Synonyms of gameful

game-filled

Forms of gameful

Adjective
comparative	more gameful
superlative	most gameful
Noun
plural	gamefuls

Origin of gameful

From Middle English gameful, gamful; equivalent to game + -ful.

From game + -ful.

Questions about gameful

What does gameful mean?: Gameful means full of game (prey for a hunter).
How do you use gameful in a sentence?: Ye vig'rous Swains! while Youth ferments your Blood, And purer Spirits swell the sprightly Flood, Now range the Hills, the gameful Woods beset, Wind the shrill Horn, or spread the waving Net.
What part of speech is gameful?: Gameful can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce gameful?: Gameful is pronounced /ˈɡeɪmfʊl/.

Words near gameful in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: gameful (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

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