Definition of "spadeful" []

• The amount held by (or moved by) a spade (shovel) at once. A shovelful. (noun)

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• "There's seems little point in working our way through the whole sorry mess of manure, shovelling it out spadeful by spadeful, not when the whole construction is built on poisoned earth over a cess-pit of raw sewage."
• "This is a good thing for Democrats, because it means putting the last spadeful of dirt on the carcass of President Obama's hopes of bipartisanship in Washington during his term of office."
• "Some may decry the outcome as shoveling the last spadeful of dirt on the grave of objective and unbiased political reporting, but in reality it will just return American to an earlier time in our history."