[f. QUIVER sb.1 + -FUL.] As much as a quiver can hold. Usually fig. with ref. to Ps. cxxvii. 5. (see QUIVER sb.1 1 b, quot. 1535).
1859. Miss Mulock, Poems, 214. Sharp wind, keen wind, cutting as word-arrows, Empty thy quiverful!
1861. Bumstead, Ven. Dis. (1879), 210. Women … who have ‘replenished the earth’ with many quiverfuls of offspring.
1885. Manch. Exam., 18 Feb., 5/2. A quiverful of satirical invectives.
1890. H. E. M. Stutfield, in Longm. Mag., July, 298. She was surrounded by a quiverful of chubby-cheeked children.
b. Used as adj. Having one’s quiver full.
1869. Daily News, 20 March, 5/2. Are such practitioners … entitled to charge the quiverful and luckless Paterfamilias one guinea a visit?
