From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishbe a handfulbe a handfulinformalCONTROL someone, especially a child, who is a handful is difficult to control She’s a lovely child, but she can be a bit of a handful sometimes. → handful
Examples from the Corpus
be a handful• In it was a handful of small sherds.• It was a handful of teams from all over the map.• That is a handful of the most visible Salomon mortgage traders on Wall Street.• He's not alone; there are a handful of others who have nowhere else to go.• However, there were a handful of occasions at Cely when her husband's restraining influence was very much a factor.• There is a handful of raw-material exports.• There were a handful of men in the audience when I saw the film.• Foremost among provincial towns were a handful of regional capitals with populations upwards of five or six thousand. 