A quantity that a tender (railroad car behind the engine) holds.
With a tenderful of splendid coal, 231 was going up like an engine possessed, exhaust ringing out clear in the frosty air and a great column of sparks shooting to the moonlit sky, while all down the curving line behind us you could see the little fires springing up.1940, D.L. Smith, “More Glasgow & South Western Nights' Entertainments”, in The Railway Magazine, volume 86:
His complaint was more than justified, for seldom have I seen such a tenderful of dust and sweepings.1951, Patrick Ransome-Wallis, On Railways at Home and Abroad, page 84:
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In the course of describing several runs he mentioned one in which engine and train were brought to a dead stand at Seaton Junction in the down direction, with ten bogies (that might have been much worse !) a wet southwest wind and a tenderful of foreign coal comprised of 75 per cent slack and fine dust.1956, Cuthbert Hamilton Ellis, The South Western Railway:
When an engine gets a tenderful of this stuff, there will be trouble in making steam freely enough to take the train along on time.2015, Angus Sinclair, Locomotive Engine Running and Management, page 303:
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The quantity that a tender (ship that functions as a mobile base) holds.
A dreary year for the Squadron, this 1819, when officers and men fell sick by the shipload and were sent home by the tenderful, when Lemon Valley Hospital was supplemented by the one at High Peak, when Court-Martials were held at the rate of one a fortnight, burials thrice a week, and surveys on foul provisions every other day!1912, George Leo de St. M. Watson, Sir Robert Thomas Wilson, A Polish Exile with Napoleon, page 276:
The sea tossed and jostled Rose and a tenderful of Willies.1936, Stella Benson, Collected Short Stories, page 135:
1 more example
A tenderful of frightened and annoyed passengers remained where they were for three hours, prevented from communicating their plight to passing small craft by an impenetrable GrecoAnglo language barrier.2000, John Maxtone-Graham, Liners to the Sun, page 315:
You needn't have been so tenderful. I'm going to put on wedding-robes myself, you know.1863 October, Harper's Magazine, volume 27, number 161, page 627:
Fair eyes, from out whose azure pitiful A pleading glory shines through crystal dew; Sweet quivering lips that breathe a blessing new, In silent woe of love most tenderful.1879, The Princeton Poets, page 155:
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It sweetened and strengthened myself to feel The tenderful touch of thy thrillant palm;1892, Will Hubbard- Kernan, The Flaming Meteor: Poetical Works of Will Hubbard-Kernan, page 127:
Oh , I'm seein' him now as I looked on him last, wid his hair all curly and bright, And the wonderful, tenderful heart he had, and his eyes as he wint away,1916, Robert William Service, Rhymes of a Red Cross Man, page 164: