pouch

[pouch]

noun

a bag, sack, or similar receptacle, especially one for small articles or quantities: a tobacco pouch.
a small moneybag.
a bag for carrying mail.

a bag or case of leather, used by soldiers to carry ammunition.
something shaped like or resembling a bag or pocket.
Chiefly Scot. a pocket in a garment.
a baggy fold of flesh under the eye.
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.
Botany. a baglike cavity.

verb (used with object)

to put into or enclose in a pouch, bag, or pocket; pocket.
to arrange in the form of a pouch.
(of a fish or bird) to swallow.

verb (used without object)

to form a pouch or a cavity resembling a pouch.

Origin of pouch

1350–1400; Middle English pouche < Anglo-French, variant of Old French poche; also poke, poque bag. See poke²

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Related Words for pouches

pocket, bag, purse, sac, poke, receptacle, sack

Examples from the Web for pouches

Contemporary Examples of pouches

Even when caught with 100 pouches of tobacco the infractions are minor.
With Cigarettes Banned In Most Prisons, Gangs Shift From Drugs To Smokes
Seth Ferranti
June 2, 2013
Once the tobacco is on the compound, the pouches wholesale for 50 books of stamps, or $300 each.
With Cigarettes Banned In Most Prisons, Gangs Shift From Drugs To Smokes
Seth Ferranti
June 2, 2013
“The kitchen warehouse clerk was paid $1,000 for every 100 pouches to receive and store the tobacco,” the prisoner says.
With Cigarettes Banned In Most Prisons, Gangs Shift From Drugs To Smokes
Seth Ferranti
June 2, 2013

Historical Examples of pouches

Pouches and sacks are also hung in racks to be distributed into.
The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1.
Various
Here the man who was to relieve him refused to take the pouches.
When the West Was Young
Frederick R. Bechdolt
Stepping back, her hands now reached for one of the pouches at her belt.
Storm Over Warlock
Andre Norton
Into each of these pouches there is an entrance from the lower side of the leaf.
Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7
Charles H. Sylvester
But the less we think of the strife when we are in the stall, the better for our pouches.
The Last Of The Barons, Complete
Edward Bulwer-Lytton

British Dictionary definitions for pouches

pouch

noun

a small flexible baglike containera tobacco pouch
a saclike structure in any of various animals, such as the abdominal receptacle marsupium in marsupials or the cheek fold in rodents
anatomy any sac, pocket, or pouchlike cavity or space in an organ or part
another word for mailbag
a Scot word for pocket

verb

(tr) to place in or as if in a pouch
to arrange or become arranged in a pouchlike form
(tr) (of certain birds and fishes) to swallow

Derived Formspouchy, adjective

Word Origin for pouch

C14: from Old Norman French pouche, from Old French poche bag; see poke ²

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for pouches

pouch

early 14c., "bag for carrying things," especially (late 14c.) "small bag in which money is carried," from Anglo-French puche, Old North French pouche (13c.), Old French poche "purse, poke," all from a Germanic source (cf. Old English pocca "bag;" see poke (n.1)). Extended to cavities in animal bodies from c.1400.

pouches in Medicine

pouch

[pouch]

A pocketlike space in the body.