combful

Etymology

Definitions

1. 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.
   • Is your hair coming out by great combsful? Every combful causing a pang of fear for the future.
   • Poseidon changed his position and lay stomach upward on my sister’s lap, so that it was now combsful of white fur which were released on the breezes to join the brown.
2. 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;[…]
   • 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.

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