A spoon (larger than a dessert-spoon) used for taking soup, and, in a larger size, for serving vegetables, puddings, etc., at table.
1763. Brit. Mag., IV. 275. The villain stole two large tablespoons.
1804. Med. & Phys. Jrnl., XI. 434. New Method of expelling the Tape Worm…. He is to take, before breakfast, one powder of the following mixture, which the Doctor calls specificum, in a tablespoon full of syrupus persicorum.
1865. Dickens, Mut. Fr., I. ii. With an immense obtuse drab oblong face, like a face in a tablespoon.
1922. R. Graves, On English Poetry, liv. 126. Poetry is no more a narcotic than a stimulant; it is a universal bitter-sweet mixture for all possible household emergencies, and its action varies according as it is taken in a wine-glass or tablespoon, inhaled, gargled, or rubbed on the chest (like the literary Epic) by hard fingers covered with rings.
Hence Tablespoonful, as much as a table-spoon holds.
1772. Higgins, in Phil. Trans., LXIII. 140. Half a tablespoonful of the … solution.
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., I. xvi. 198. Brandy … served out in tablespoonful doses.
1894. Walsh, Coffee (Philad.), 240. Add half tablespoonful of powdered chicory to two tablespoonfuls of ground coffee.
