[f. THIMBLE + -FUL.] As much as a thimble will hold; hence, a small quantity, esp. of wine or spirits; a dram; also fig. of something immaterial.
1607. Markham, Caval. II. (1617), 120. Take halfe a thimbleful of Gunpowder.
1622. Mabbe, trans. Aleman’s Guzman d’Alf., I. 23. By eating by ounces, and drinking by thimblefuls, they liue by drams.
1760. Foote, Minor, I. Wks. 1799, I. 248. Wou’d you take another thimbleful, Mrs. Cole?
1789. Wolcott (P. Pindar), Expost. Odes, xi. Now can’t I give a thimblefull of Praise.
1862. W. G. Brownlow, Sk. Secession, 41. No capitalist with a thimbleful of sense would lend it a dollar; for no man could feel assured that such a Government would last long enough to pay a six months’ loan, to say nothing of loans for a term of years.
1889. Jessopp, Coming of Friars, ii. 93. Cordials were … on special occasions dealt out in thimblefuls.
1894. Helen M. Gougar, in Voice (N.Y.), 31 May. Anybody with a thimbleful of political or reform sense knows.
