handful vs handspan

handful

noun
  • The amount that a hand will grasp or contain. 

  • A five-year prison sentence. 

  • Something which can only be managed with difficulty. 

  • A group or number of things; a bunch. 

  • A small number, usually approximately five. 

handspan

noun
  • The distance between the outstretched tips of the little finger and thumb when used as a unit of measurement 

How often have the words handful and handspan occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )