Still in Hythe in Kent this week, working on the translation of a book on art education for children. Fascinating stuff. I wish I’d read it when my children were still small. Apparently, I’ve ruined them for life. Still, I did manage to work the word ‘brimful’ into the translation. A glass or a cup has a brim and if you fill it to the brim, it’s brimful (and you’ll probably spill some trying to get it to your mouth!). I could have used chock-full, crammed full or jam-packed but I went for brimful. A hat also has a brim but doesn’t do as good a job of holding coffee or gin. When I went looking for information on ‘brimful’, I discovered that in Old and Middle English, full/ful came before and not after the other word! I did not know that! For example ‘fulslean’ meaning to kill outright. I’ve put the link in the comments for any other language geeks who would like to read more about this.
There are still quite a lot of words in Dutch which put the horse before the cart, as it were, or the full before the rest. Words like volvet (full fat), volslagen, volledig and volkomen (completely), volslank (not exactly thin).
I hope your inbox is full to the brim of interesting job offers this week!
https://www.etymonline.com/word/brimful