handful

noun

1. The amount that a hand will grasp or contain.

   “I put two or three corns in my mouth, liked it, stole a handful, went into my chamber, chewed it, and for two months after never failed taking toll of every pennyworth of oatmeal that came into the house: […]”

2. (obsolete)A hand's breadth; four inches.

   “Knap the tongs together about a handful from the bottom.”

3. A small number, usually approximately five.

   “This handful of men were tied to very hard duty.”

   “The names of a number of the most famous North American railroads could be found in the north-east; Pennsylvania, New York Central, Baltimore & Ohio, Chesapeake & Ohio, and the Norfolk & Western, to name but a handful.”

   “You tell me the velocity of a baseball as it leaves Derek Jeter's bat, and I can use the laws of physics to calculate where it will land a handful of seconds later.”

   “Was it deliberate that the first week of October 1961 was chosen to conduct a national survey of passenger usage? Why October of all months, when the holiday season was over and families back at work and at school? Was this a fiddling of the figures to make an unfair case against rail-dependent resorts such as those in the West Country, Norfolk, Lincolnshire and East Yorkshire, where previously overloaded summer services would now only have a handful of locals on board?”

4. A group or number of things; a bunch.

   “But, aunt, she must have had some kind of education, her accent was so pure, her English so unfaulty. The other girl dropped her h's by handfuls, and made some very wild confusion in her native etymology.”

5. (informal)Something which can only be managed with difficulty.

   “Those twins are a real handful to look after.”

   “The Southern acquired them because the little Class "B4" 0-4-0 tanks were finding heavy modern rolling stock more and more of a handful, and at war's end the railway had nothing of suitable power but short wheelbase on its books to take their place on the more tortuous of the dock lines.”

   “Many times dogs are surrendered for reasons such as changes in the family unit, a death in the family, no time to care for a dog, or because that cute little puppy is now a 100 lb untrained handful.”

6. (slang)A five-year prison sentence.