pocket

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A small bag sewn into clothing for carrying small things.

   My trousers had four pockets, two at the front and two at the back.

2. 2
   noun

   The money a person has available to spend.

   A holiday like that is well beyond my pocket.

3. 3
   noun

   A small, separate area or group within a larger one.

   There are still a few pockets of resistance in the city.

4. 4
   noun

   One of the openings at the edge of a pool or billiard table that the balls fall into.

   He sank three balls in the far-right pocket.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Pocket entered Middle English from Anglo-Norman French poket or pokete, meaning a little poke or pouch. Its earliest recorded English sense was “bag” or “sack.”

From Middle English pocket (“bag, sack”), from Anglo-Norman poket, Old Northern French poquet, poquete, diminutive of poque, poke (“bag, sack”) (compare modern Norman pouquette and modern French pochette from Old French pochete, from puche), from Frankish *pokō (“pouch”), from Proto-Germanic *pukkô, *pukô (“bag; pouch”), from Proto-Indo-European *bew- (“to blow, swell”). Equivalent to poke + -et. Doublet of pochette. Cognate with Middle Dutch poke, Alemannic German Pfoch (“purse, bag”), Old English pocca, pohha (“poke, pouch, pocket, bag”), Old Norse poki (“bag, pocket”). Compare the related p…

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External links

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• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary