deckful

From deck +‎ -ful.

deckful (plural deckfuls or decksful)

1. The amount that comprises a deck (of cards).
   • 1966 March, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 1, in The Crying of Lot 49, New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, published November 1976, →ISBN, page 2:

     […] then through the sunned gathering of her marjoram and sweet basil from the herb garden, reading of book reviews in the latest Scientific American, into the layering of a lasagna, garlicking of a bread, tearing up of romaine leaves, eventually, oven on, into the mixing of the twilight's whisky sours against the arrival of her husband, Wendell (“Mucho) Maas from work, she wondered, wondered, shuffling back through a fat deckful of days which seemed (wouldn't she be first to admit it?) more or less identical, or all pointing the same way subtly like a conjurer's deck, any odd one readily clear to a trained eye.

   • 2013, Ivan Doig, Bucking the Sun: A Novel, →ISBN, page 134:

     In contrast, Colonel Parmenter having graduated from Choate and West Point, and been a high-ranking Kansas City officer, Mrs. Parmenter sat there with an entire deckful of aces.

   • 2016, Alan Tootill, Cole In The Country, page 197:

     I seem to have met a playing card deckful of Jacks lately.

2. The amount that a deck will hold.
   • 1928, Cameron Rogers, Drake's Quest, page 39:

     Next morning it made a brave sight even for English eyes as it sailed statelily in, capitana and almiranta leading, flying wondrous fair flags betokening the eminence of their commanding noblemen, and decksful of armed men.

   • 1994, Jack Butler, Living in Little Rock with Miss Little Rock, →ISBN, page 98:

     He was a whole deckful of loose cannons, rumbling this way and that with the pitch of every wave.

   • 2005, Andrew Carnegie, Round the World, →ISBN, page 26:

     We are only twenty miles from the Morrell Islands. How I long for a deckful of my friends to exult with me in this delight !

   • 2011, Ian Young, The Private Life Of Islam: An Algerian Diary, →ISBN:

     Three deckfuls of refugees at rest.

   • 2012, Chris Bunch, The Warrior King: Book Three of the Seer King Trilogy, →ISBN:

     One galley rowed alongside a boat and came back with a deckful, some of which were hoisted aboard to be steamed for our dinner.

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