pocket

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 *pokā (“pouch”), from Proto-Germanic *pukkô, *pukô (“bag; pouch”), from Proto-Indo-European *bew- (“to blow, swell”). 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 poke (“sack or bag”). See also Modern French pochette and Latin bucca.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈpɒ.kɪt/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈpɑ.kɪt/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

  • (weak vowel merger) IPA^(key): /ˈpɑ.kət/
• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˈpɔ.kɪt/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: pock‧et
• Rhymes: -ɒkɪt

pocket (plural pockets)

1. A bag stitched to an item of clothing, used for carrying small items.
   • 1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], chapter 1, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020:

     “Do I fidget you ?” he asked apologetically, whilst his long bony fingers buried themselves, string, knots, and all, into the capacious pockets of his magnificent tweed ulster.

2. (by extension) A person's financial resources.

   Synonym: pocketbook

   I paid for it out of my own pocket.

   • 2012, Simon Heffer, “In Fagin's Footsteps”, in Literary Review, section 403:

     There was, for much of the period, no cheap public transport; and even the Underground, or one of Shillibeer's horse-drawn omnibuses, was beyond the pocket of many of the poor.

   • 2022 April 6, “Network News: Spring Statement: Sunak accused of making rail less competitive”, in RAIL, number 954, page 8:

     "The financial impact of the fuel duty cut on people's pockets will in fact be minimal, […] "

3. (sports, billiards, pool, snooker) An indention and cavity with a net sack or similar structure (into which the balls are to be struck) at each corner and one centered on each side of a pool or snooker table.
4. An enclosed volume of one substance surrounded by another.
   • 2012, John Branch, “Snow Fall : The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek”, in New York Time‎:

     She knew from avalanche safety courses that outstretched hands might puncture the ice surface and alert rescuers. She knew that if victims ended up buried under the snow, cupped hands in front of the face could provide a small pocket of air for the mouth and nose. Without it, the first breaths could create a suffocating ice mask.

   The drilling expedition discovered a pocket of natural gas.

5. (Australia) An area of land surrounded by a loop of a river.
6. (Australian rules football) The area of the field to the side of the goal posts (four pockets in total on the field, one to each side of the goals at each end of the ground). The pocket is only a roughly defined area, extending from the behind post, at an angle, to perhaps about 30 meters out.
7. (American football) The area behind the line of scrimmage subject to certain rules regarding intentional grounding, illegal contact, etc., formally extending to the end zone but more usually understood as the central area around the quarterback directly protected by the offensive line.
   • 2014 June 20, Gregor Bozic, "Ramblings: Classic Pocket Passers versus Mobile Quarterbacks", Football Outsiders:

     For many years, the popular belief among NFL analysts was that the success of an NFL team comes with a quarterback who can stand tall in the pocket and deliver the ball downfield. Members of the elite group of active quarterbacks, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and Drew Brees, for instance, also earned their reputation by making plays almost exclusively from the pocket.

   • 2019 Dec. 6, Josh Hermsmeyer, "Teams Are Excelling when Their QBs Leave the Pocket. Can that Continue?", FiveThirtyEight:

     With some notable exceptions, NFL teams that are successful on dropbacks outside the pocket have tended to win more games

   • 2021, Official Playing Rules of the National Football League, §26: Pocket Area:

     The Pocket Area is the area between the outside edges of the normal tackle positions on each side of the center extending backward to the offensive team's end line. After the ball leaves the pocket area, this area no longer exists.

8. (military) An area where military units are completely surrounded by enemy units.
9. (rugby) The position held by a second defensive middle, where an advanced middle must retreat after making a touch on the attacking middle.
   • 2011 October 1, Tom Fordyce, “Rugby World Cup 2011: England 16-12 Scotland”, in BBC Sport‎:

     Matt Stevens was crumpled by Euan Murray in another scrum, allowing Parks to kick for the corner, and when Richie Gray's clean take from the subsequent line-out set up a series of drives under the posts, Parks was back in the pocket to belt over a drop-goal to make it 9-3 at the interval.

10. (surfing) The unbroken part of a wave that offers the surfer the most power.
11. A large bag or sack formerly used for packing various articles, such as ginger, hops, or cowries; the pocket of wool held about 168 pounds.
12. (architecture) A hole or space covered by a movable piece of board, as in a floor, boxing, partitions, etc.
13. (mining) A cavity in a rock containing a nugget of gold, or other mineral; a small body of ore contained in such a cavity.
14. (nautical) A strip of canvas sewn upon a sail so that a batten or a light spar can placed in the interspace.
15. The pouch of an animal.
16. (bowling) The ideal point where the pins are hit by the bowling ball.
17. A socket for receiving the base of a post, stake, etc.
18. A bight on a lee shore.
19. (dentistry) A small space between a tooth and the adjoining gum, formed by an abnormal separation of the two.
20. A small, isolated group or area.
    • 2020 November 4, Paul Bigland, “At no point have I felt unsafe...”, in Rail, page 47:

      They are comfortable trains with decent windows, ideal for observing a line which is one of the last pockets of manually operated crossing gates and semaphore signalling - [...].

21. (music) A state achieved with steady, enjoyable drumming.

    in the pocket

• (US football): backfield, passing pocket, tackle box

• poke

• Pocket in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

pocket (third-person singular simple present pockets, present participle pocketing, simple past and past participle pocketed)

1. (transitive) To put (something) into a pocket.
   • c. 1606–1607, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii], page 346, column 1:

     [Y]ou / Did pocket vp my Letters: and with taunts / Did gibe my Miſive out of audience.

2. (billiards, snooker, pool) To cause a ball to go into one of the pockets of the table; to complete a shot.
3. (transitive, informal) To take and keep (something, especially money, that is not one's own).

   Record executives pocketed most of the young singer's earnings.

   The thief was caught on camera pocketing the diamond.

   • 2023, 85-year-old man arrested for stealing condoms from convenience store:

     The store manager, a woman in her 50s, saw Sasaki pocket the condoms and detained him at the entrance to the store, while another employee called police.

4. (transitive, informal, dated) To put up with; to bear without complaint.
   • 1810, Great Britain. Parliament, The Parliamentary Register, page 557:

     As long as the house suffered the practice to prevail, they must submit to pocket the insult of being told that it existed.

• (in billiards, etc): pot
• (take and keep, etc): trouser

• pocket up

pocket (not comparable)

1. Of a size suitable for putting into a pocket.

   a pocket dictionary

2. Smaller or more compact than usual.

   pocket battleship

   pocket beach

   • 1990, Stephen King, The Moving Finger:

     She ate, drank, worked, danced, and made love in exactly the same way: con brio. She came into the apartment like a pocket hurricane.

   • 2024 January 19, Larry Elliott, John Collingridge, quoting Radosław Sikorski, “Casting their shadow: how Trump, Putin and AI dominated talk at Davos”, in The Guardian‎, →ISSN:

     “There is never a shortage of pocket [Neville]^[sic] Chamberlains willing to sacrifice other people’s land for their own peace of mind,” Sikorski said.

3. (Texas hold'em poker) Referring to the two initial hole cards.

   a pocket pair of kings

• (of a size suitable for a pocket): pocket-size, pocket-sized

• bag
• pouch
• purse
• sack

• “pocket”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

pocket m (plural pocketow or pocketys)

1. pocket

Borrowed from English pocket.

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɔ.kət/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: poc‧ket

pocket m (plural pockets)

1. A pocket book, a portable book of compact size, usually a paperback.

• pocketwoordenboek

Borrowed from English pocket.

pocket c

1. paperback; book with flexible binding

   Synonym: pocketbok

• pocketrea
• pocketupplaga
• pocketutgåva

• pucket

From Middle English coket, original c- was misread.

• IPA^(key): /pɔˈkiːt/, /pʊˈkiːt/

pocket

1. A lump of bread.

• Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 62