Pouch comes from Old French pouche, a Picard or Norman variant of poche ('bag, pocket'), of Germanic origin (compare Old English pocca 'bag'). The historical chain includes Old French pouche and Proto-Germanic *pukô. The quoted older senses, "bag, pocket" and "bag", supply the semantic anchors for pouch. The formation is best read as borrowed: the word pouch carries its older form-history into a compact English lexical shape. In present English it is used as a noun, "a small bag or pocket-like container". English derivatives include pouched and pouchy; related English forms include poke and pocket. The result is a noun and verb whose etymology preserves both the older form and the later English specialization.