An old-fashioned American folk measurement meaning as much as a dipper — the long-handled ladle or cup once used to scoop water from a bucket or barrel — can hold. Roughly equivalent to a cupful, it's the kind of measure you'd find in 19th-century recipes, pioneer diaries, and Southern folk cooking traditions. The word has a warm, domestic, frontier-era quality and occasionally appears in historical fiction or when someone wants to evoke a time before standardised kitchen measurements.
The recipe called for a dipperful of cold spring water added slowly to the cornmeal while stirring.
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(US) As much as a dipper will hold; a cupful.
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Regional slang from around the English-speaking world — British, Australian, Irish, Caribbean, Nigerian, Filipino, AAVE, and the hyphenated-English dialects that make the internet sound local.
See all Regional & Other slang on Slangora.