pouch
Americannoun
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a bag, sack, or similar receptacle, especially one for small articles or quantities.
a tobacco pouch.
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a small moneybag.
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a bag for carrying mail.
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a bag or case of leather, used by soldiers to carry ammunition.
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something shaped like or resembling a bag or pocket.
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Chiefly Scot. a pocket in a garment.
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a baggy fold of flesh under the eye.
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Anatomy, Zoology. a baglike or pocketlike part; a sac or cyst, as the sac beneath the bill of pelicans, the saclike dilation of the cheeks of gophers, or the receptacle for the young of marsupials.
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Botany. a baglike cavity.
verb (used with object)
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to put into or enclose in a pouch, bag, or pocket; pocket.
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to arrange in the form of a pouch.
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(of a fish or bird) to swallow.
verb (used without object)
noun
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a small flexible baglike container
a tobacco pouch
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a saclike structure in any of various animals, such as the abdominal receptacle marsupium in marsupials or the cheek fold in rodents
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anatomy any sac, pocket, or pouchlike cavity or space in an organ or part
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another word for mailbag
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a Scot word for pocket
verb
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(tr) to place in or as if in a pouch
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to arrange or become arranged in a pouchlike form
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(tr) (of certain birds and fishes) to swallow
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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pouchsimple
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pouchessimple
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have pouchedperfect
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has pouchedperfect
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am pouchingprogressive
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are pouchingprogressive
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is pouchingprogressive
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have been pouchingperfect progressive
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has been pouchingperfect progressive
Past
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pouchedsimple
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had pouchedperfect
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was pouchingprogressive
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were pouchingprogressive
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had been pouchingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of pouch
1350–1400; Middle English pouche < Anglo-French, variant of Old French poche; also poke, poque bag. See poke 2
Explanation
A pouch is a small container or bag, like the pouch full of dog treats you carry when you take your new puppy to obedience school. Sit! Stay! Good boy. It used to be much more common for people to carry things around in pouches for safety and convenience — money pouches, mail pouches, tobacco pouches, and so on. Often these were drawstring bags that cinched securely at the top. The word came to be used for other things with a similar shape, including animal cavities meant for carrying babies (think a kangaroo's pouch) and various pocket-shaped receptacles.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“Let’s not have him shake his head,” said Rae, as she leaned closer toward the screen displaying the vertical video feed of the father eating from a bright yellow pouch of Gushers.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 28, 2026
"I feel like if I have a pouch, it will stop me going on my phone a lot and checking it."
From BBC ● Apr. 22, 2026
Carlson and Patel also launched a precious metals company and a nicotine pouch company.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 13, 2026
EV batteries come in different forms—cylindrical, pouch and prismatic—but grid-scale batteries tend to just be prismatic, a rectangular shape that can be stacked.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 19, 2026
From his medicine pouch, he took Renn’s little birch-bast bundle.
From "Wolf Brother" by Michelle Paver
Those include rival Rogue’s mango-flavored pouches and Velo’s wild berry and dragon fruit flavors.
From Barron's ● Jun. 30, 2026
In recent years the company has invested in manufacturing across the U.S. to produce the pouches, after consumer shortages.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 30, 2026
Some have special lockers for phones, others have sealed pouches.
From BBC ● Jun. 27, 2026
Mammals rarely co-parent, as opposed to, say, fish—seahorse dads develop brood pouches during their pregnancies, boosted by the hormone prolactin—but humans are an exception.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 2026
There were pouches under the eyes, the skin sagged from the cheekbones.
From "1984" by George Orwell
He estimates roughly 85 CoreWeave employees have been pouched by OpenAI and Anthropic this year alone.
From Barron's ● Jul. 1, 2026
Henry Nicholls should have pouched a simple catch at third slip.
From BBC ● Jun. 26, 2026
Ronin, an African giant pouched rat, has uncovered 109 landmines and 15 items of unexploded ordnance since 2021, charity Apopo, which trains the animals, said in a statement.
From BBC ● Apr. 4, 2025
African giant pouched rats are the largest rats in the world.
From NewsForKids.net ● Nov. 28, 2024
His somber, pouched, furrowed face was turned again to the fire.
From "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin
The district has left the choreography of pouching — and policing — to the schools.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 24, 2025
Two overs later De Villiers fell in similar fashion for 40, David Warner pouching an awkward catch at point.
From BBC ● Nov. 11, 2012
When Castro addressed an election-eve rally on Jan. 9, all his 71 years were recorded on his face: a beard grown gray, deep bags pouching out below red-rimmed eyes, age spots dotting his forehead.
From Time Magazine Archive
Then he opened his eyes and raised his head, pouching out his cheeks and sniffing at the two rabbits beside him.
From "Watership Down: A Novel" by Richard Adams
When the turkey was relieved from his pouching and sent to bed, Pierre Grignon took his violin.
From Lazarre by Catherwood, Mary Hartwell
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
