shipload

noun — 2 senses

shipload

noun

US /ˈʃɪpˌloʊd/

Etymology From ship + load.

1

Nautical, Transport The amount (of cargo) that a ship can carry.

  • It might, under all the circumstances above stated, have been a question with other builders, whether to import one shipload of costly jaspers, or twenty of chalk flints; and whether to build a small church faced with porphyry and paved with agate, or to raise a vast cathedral in freestone.1853, John Ruskin, “IV, St. Mark's”, in The Stones of Venice, volume II (The Sea-Stories), London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], →OCLC, § XXVII, page 77:
  • The Penrhyn slate quarry possibly dates back to the sixteenth century, as it appears that in 1580 Sion Tudor asked the Bishop of Bangor for a shipload of slate.1945 May and June, Charles E. Lee, “The Penrhyn Railway and its Locomotives—1”, in Railway Magazine, page 138:
1 more example
  • Alas, our shipload of Pelts, upon which we had borrow'd heavily, approaching the Channel, was surpriz'd by one of Monseer's Privateers and like that, ta'en.1997, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 66, in Mason & Dixon, 1st US edition, New York: Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN, part Two: America, page 641:
2

Minced oath of shitload.

  • But, providing you have access to a shipload of coloured pencils and a naughty boy to sharpen them, they are a good and valid classroom method with a variety of applications.2006 April 18, Philip Beadle, “Mind maps: rubbish in theory, but handy in practice”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.