Thursday word: yepsen

yepsen - n., the amount that can be held in two hands cupped together.


I wish I could say anything else about this word, but I can't. I came across it in a Forgotten English page-a-day calendar, but aside from validating that it really existed, I got nothing. (That it's also a last name makes it rather hard to Google more.) I really want to know the etymology, too. Anyone? Bueller?

Each child carried, for want of baskets, a yepsen of berries into the pantry, making a peck in all.

---L.