pocket

Pluralpockets

Formspockets, pocketing, pocketed

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A small bag sewn into a piece of clothing, used for carrying small items.

   He always keeps his phone in his jacket pocket.

   The tailor added two pockets to the inside of the coat.

   Note

   A little bag by origin. Middle English pocket meant "bag, sack", from Anglo-Norman poket, a diminutive of poque or poke, "bag", which goes back through Frankish to Germanic. Tailors build one as a patch sewn on the outside, an opening set into a seam, or a welt. Pockets can also be generous: Baroness Orczy's The Case of Miss Elliott gives a fidgety man "capacious pockets" in his tweed ulster.

2. 2
   verbtransitive

   To slip or put something away in one's pocket.

   She pocketed her phone before stepping into the meeting.

   Always pocket your wallet in a crowded market.

   Similarstow, tuck, stash

   Note

   The verb is old enough for Shakespeare: Antony and Cleopatra has "you did pocket up my letters". The doubled t of pocketting and pocketted appears from the eighteenth century, in Thackeray and others, into recent writing. The standard forms keep a single t, giving pocketed and pocketing, because the stress falls on the first syllable.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   The money and financial means available to a person.

   The repair costs came out of her own pocket.

   Luxury cars like that are well beyond the average pocket.

   Similarpocketbook

   Note

   Money is pictured here as what a person carries about. The sense lives in set phrases: you pay out of your own pocket, a fare is beyond the pocket of the poor, a tax cut lands in people's pockets. Pocketbook works the same way. The singular can stand for a whole class of purses, as in Simon Heffer's "beyond the pocket of many of the poor".

4. 4
   verbcolloquialtransitive

   To take something that belongs to someone else, especially money, and keep it for oneself.

   He quietly pocketed the tips meant for the whole staff.

   Dishonest clerks pocket the difference whenever they can.

   Similarsteal, embezzle, pilfer, appropriate, keep

   Note

   Dishonesty is what separates this from the plain putting-away sense. The hands do the same thing, but what is pocketed belongs to someone else. The use is old: Richard Lichfield writes "hath pocketted thy grace" in 1597. It suits money skimmed quietly, such as earnings, tips or the difference, though a thief can pocket a diamond too.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   A small, isolated group or area separated from those around it.

   Scattered pockets of resistance remained in the hills.

   The survey found a pocket of strong support in the rural north.

   Similarenclave, island, patch, cluster

   Note

   It is often a word for what survives. Pockets of resistance hold out, and Paul Bigland writes in Rail (2020) of a line that is "one of the last pockets" of manually operated crossing gates and semaphore signaling. The picture is of something left over inside a larger, different whole.

6. 6
   adjective

   Of a size small enough to be carried in a pocket.

   A pocket calculator fit easily inside his shirt.

   These pocket editions are popular with travelers.

   Similarportable, compact, handheld, miniature, small

   Note

   The noun goes in front of another noun to mean small enough to carry: a pocket dictionary, a pocket calculator, a pocket edition. It does not compare, since nothing is more pocket than something else. It also does not stand after the noun, so a dictionary is described as pocket-sized rather than pocket.

7. 7
   adjective

   Smaller or more compact than is usual for its kind.

   The navy built a pocket battleship during the 1930s.

   She runs a pocket version of a full theater company.

   Similarminiature, compact, mini, small

   Note

   Here the size word turns figurative and often wry: a pocket battleship, a pocket beach, and Stephen King's woman who arrives "like a pocket hurricane". It can belittle too, as with Radosław Sikorski's "pocket Chamberlains", imitators on a small scale. Unlike the fits-in-a-pocket adjective, nothing here goes in a pocket; the word simply means scaled down.

8. 8
   nouncountable

   A space filled with one substance and closed in on all sides by another, such as gas trapped in rock.

   Miners struck a pocket of natural gas deep underground.

   Pockets of warm air rose through the cooler atmosphere.

   Similarbubble, cavity, patch

   Note

   It is built with of and the trapped substance: a pocket of air, a pocket of natural gas. In John Branch's "Snow Fall" (2012), cupped hands in front of the face can leave a buried avalanche victim a small pocket of air. The miner's pocket of ore and the small, isolated group are narrower uses of the same picture.

9. 9
   nouncountable

   One of the netted openings at the corners and sides of a pool or snooker table, into which the balls are struck.

   She sank the eight ball in the corner pocket to win the game.

   Two balls dropped into the same pocket on the break.

   Note

   A pool or snooker table has six of them, one at each corner and one midway along each side, which is why players tell the corner pockets from the side ones. Each is a cut-out with a net or similar sack beneath it to catch the ball. Sending a ball into one gives the verb to pocket a ball.

10. 10
    verbtransitive

    To send a ball into one of the pockets of a pool or snooker table, completing the shot.

    He pocketed the final black to clinch the frame.

    A skilled player can pocket several balls in a single visit.

    Similarpot, sink

    Note

    The cue-sport verb is made from the table's netted openings. Snooker players pocket a named ball, such as the final black or a red. A ball pocketed legally can score and keep the player at the table, so the word implies a successful shot rather than mere contact.

Showing meanings only. Show all 28