different between pocket vs ditch

English

Etymology

From Middle English pocket (“bag, sack”), from Anglo-Norman poket, Old Northern French poquet, poquete, diminutive of poque, poke (“bag, sack”) (compare modern French pochette from Old French pochete, from puche), from Frankish *poka (“pouch”), from Proto-Germanic *pukkô, *pukô (“bag; pouch”), from Proto-Indo-European *bew- (“to blow, swell”). 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.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?p?k?t/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?p?k?t/
• Hyphenation: pock?et
• Rhymes: -?k?t

Noun

pocket (plural pockets)

1. A bag stitched to an item of clothing, used for carrying small items.
2. Such a receptacle seen as housing someone's money; hence, financial resources.

   I paid for it out of my own pocket.

   • 2012, Simon Heffer, "In Fagin's Footsteps", Literary Review, 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.

4. (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.
5. An enclosed volume of one substance surrounded by another.

   • 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.

6. (Australia) An area of land surrounded by a loop of a river.
7. (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.
8. (American football) The region directly behind the offensive line in which the quarterback executes plays.
9. (military) An area where military units are completely surrounded by enemy units.
10. (rugby) The position held by a second defensive middle, where an advanced middle must retreat after making a touch on the attacking middle.
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.

Derived terms

Related terms

• poke

Translations

Further reading

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

Verb

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

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

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

4. (transitive, slang) To shoplift; to steal. (Can we add an example for this sense?)

   The thief was caught on camera pocketing the diamond.

5. (transitive, slang, 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.

Synonyms

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

Derived terms

• pocket up

Translations

Adjective

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.

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

   a pocket pair of kings

Synonyms

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

Translations

Derived terms

See also

• bag
• pouch
• purse
• sack

References

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

Cornish

Noun

pocket m (plural pocketow or pocketys)

1. pocket

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from English pocket.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?p?.k?t/
• Hyphenation: poc?ket

Noun

pocket m (plural pockets)

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

Derived terms

• pocketwoordenboek

Swedish

Noun

pocket c

1. paperback; book with flexible binding

Declension

Synonyms

• pocketbok

Yola

Alternative forms

• pucket

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

pocket

1. a lump of bread

References

• Jacob Poole (1867) , 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, J. Russell Smith, ?ISBN

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /d?t?/
• Rhymes: -?t?

Etymology 1

From Middle English dich, from Old English d?? (“trench, moat”) from Proto-Germanic *d?kaz (compare Swedish dike, Icelandic díki, West Frisian dyk (“dam”), Dutch dijk (“id.”), German Teich (“pond”)), from Proto-Indo-European *d?eyg?- (“to stick, set up”) (compare Latin f?g? (“to affix, fasten”), Lithuanian diegti (“to prick; plant”), dýgsti (“to geminate, grow”)). Doublet of dike.

Noun

ditch (plural ditches)

1. A trench; a long, shallow indentation, as for irrigation or drainage.

2. (Ireland) A raised bank of earth and the hedgerow on top.
   • c. 1947, Patrick Kavanagh, Stony Grey Soil

     You flung a ditch on my vision

     Of beauty, love and truth.

     O stony grey soil of Monaghan

     You burgled my bank of youth!

   • 2013, Frank McNally, When Anglophone lines get crossed

     The original ditches were created by digging trenches, as boundaries and/or irrigation. But to the English, the ditch is the trench. Whereas in Ireland, the ditch is the raised bank of earth and the hedgerow on top. (As for the trench, where I come from that’s a sheugh).

References

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• fosse
• moat

Verb

ditch (third-person singular simple present ditches, present participle ditching, simple past and past participle ditched)

1. (transitive) To discard or abandon.

2. To deliberately crash-land an airplane on water.

3. (intransitive) To deliberately not attend classes; to play hookey.

4. (intransitive) To dig ditches.

5. (transitive) To dig ditches around.

6. (transitive) To throw into a ditch.

Synonyms

• abandon
• discard
• dump
• jettison
• lose
• shed
• See also Thesaurus:junk

Translations

Etymology 2

From earlier deche, from Middle English dechen, from Old English d?can (“to smear, plaster, daub”). More at deech.

Verb

ditch (third-person singular simple present ditches, present participle ditching, simple past and past participle ditched)

1. Alternative form of deech

Noun

ditch (usually uncountable, plural ditches)

1. Alternative form of deech