subs. (old colloquial: now vulgar).—1. A sufficiency; spec. (in sarcasm) = more than one wants or cares to take or get of anything: e.g., a sound drubbing; anything unpleasant or undesired.
1370. The Romance of Richard Coer de Lion [WEBER] [T. L. KINGTON-OLIPHANT, The New English, i. 86. Richard PAYS the Saracens their RENT; like our ‘give them their BELLYFULL.’]
1535. COVERDALE, Ezek. xxvi. 2. Haue destroyed my BELY FULL.
1583. GOLDING, Calvin on Deuteronomy, ci. 684. Let him thunder his BELLY FULL.
1599. NASHE, Lenten Stuffe [GROSART, Works, V., 265]. The churlish frampold waues gaue him his BELLY FULL of fish-broath.
1605. CHAPMAN, All Fools, ii. Walk not too boldly; if the serjeants meet you, you may have swaggering work your BELLY-FULL.
1666. PEPYS, Diary, Oct. 28. He says that in the July fight, both the Prince and Holmes had their BELLY-FULLS, and were fain to go aside.
1687. A. LOVELL, Bergerac Com. Hist., ii. 42. The Spectators, having had their BELLY-FULS of Laughing.
1705. HICKERINGILL, Priest-Craft, Its Character and Consequences, II, vi. 61. Take your BELLY FULLS of Sermons.
1706. WARD, The Wooden World Dissected, 26. ‘A Sea Lieutenant.’ When he has got his BELLY-FULL of both [claps and drubbings] he puts aboard again.
1835. HALIBURTON (‘Sam Slick’), The Clockmaker, 3 S., xvi. Bunker’s Hill, where, Mr. Slick observed, ‘the British first got a taste of what they afterwards got, a BELLY-FULL.’
1852. THACKERAY, Esmond III, v. (1896), 359. The nation had had its BELLY FULL of fighting.
2. (venery).—See BELLY.
