spadeload

English

Etymology

From spade +‎ load.

Noun

spadeload (plural spadeloads)

  1. Synonym of spadeful (noun).
    a spadeload of dirt
    • 2010 [1979], Cormac McCarthy, Suttree‎[1], reprint edition, Knopf Doubleday, →ISBN, pages 153-154:
      The last of the motorcade was moving down the little drive toward the gate and save the two sextons crouched in the hillside grass like jackals he was alone. He rose and went down to the grave. […] When he looked up the gravediggers were watching him from the side of the hill. He called to them but they did not answer. Thinking him mad with grief perhaps. Perhaps he addressed his God. You two. Hey. They looked at each other and after a time rose slowly and came shambling down across the green like ordinaries in a teutonic drama. Suttree was sitting in one of the folding chairs. He gestured loosely at the grave. Can you fill this in now? […] Suttree rose from the chair and pulled back the canvas drop where it was thrown over the mound of earth. A few racks of flowers toppled. A pick and two spades lay there and he took up one of the spades and sank it into the loose dirt and hefted it and sent a load of clods rattling over the little coffin. The two men looked at each other. We got to get them straps, the one said. You better get em then, said Suttree, swinging a spadeload of clay. Well hold up a minute. The smaller man stepped down into the grave to free the straps and the other one hauled them up.
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