The technical equivalent of a boatload, also known as a heck of a lot. A polite euphemism for a similar but more profane expression.
"Are you going bowling with the guys?"
"Dude, I wish: my English teacher gave us a shipload of reading to do over the weekend."
"So are you going bowling then?"
"Yeah."
When you have to pee in a movie but don’t want to miss anything, and must do the following mental equation: will the amount I have to pee cause enough discomfort to diminish my attention capacity for the remainder of the movie to an extent which is greater than the amount of the movie I would miss by making a mad dash to the restroom.
I saw Satantango last night, wonderful film but by the 5th hour I had to start doing pee calculus.
Short-hand for the word floccinaucinihilipilification, meaning the estimation of something as valueless (encountered mainly as an example of one of the longest words in the English language).