pouch

Meanings

Noun

• A small bag usually closed with a drawstring.
• An organic pocket in which a marsupial carries its young.
• Any pocket or bag-shaped object, such as a cheek pouch.
• A protuberant belly; a paunch.
• A cyst or sac containing fluid.
• A silicle, or short pod, as of the shepherd's purse.
• A bulkhead in the hold of a vessel, to prevent grain etc. from shifting.

Verb

• To enclose within a pouch.
• To transport within a pouch, especially a diplomatic pouch.
• To swallow.
• To pout.
• To pocket; to put up with.

Origin

• From Middle English pouche, poche, borrowed from Old Northern French pouche, from Old French poche, puche (whence French poche; compare also the Anglo-Norman variant poke), of Germanic origin: from Frankish *pokō (compare Middle Dutch poke, Old English pohha, dialectal German Pfoch). Compare pocket, poke.