From Middle English pouche, poche, borrowed from fro-nor 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).

• IPA: /paʊt͡ʃ/

pouch (plural pouches)

1. A small bag usually closed with a drawstring.
2. (zoology) An organic pocket in which a marsupial carries its young.

   Synonyms: marsupium

3. Any pocket or bag-shaped object, such as a cheek pouch.
4. (slang, dated, derogatory) A protuberant belly; a paunch.
5. A cyst or sac containing fluid.
   • 1747, Samuel Sharp, A Treatise on the Operations of Surgery:

     […] form a large Pouch or Cyst

6. (botany) A silicle, or short pod, as of the shepherd's purse.
7. A bulkhead in the hold of a vessel, to prevent grain etc. from shifting.

• French: sachet, petit sac, (for tobacco) blague à tabac, (for ammunition) étui à munitions, (for cartridges) giberne, sac postal, bourse, poche, pochon, besace
• German: Beutel
• Italian: sacchetto
• Portuguese: bolsa, malote
• Russian: су́мка
• Spanish: bolsa, saquito

• French: poche, marsupium, mastothèque
• German: Beutel
• Portuguese: bolsa
• Russian: су́мка
• Spanish: marsupio, bolsa marsupial

pouch (pouches, present participle pouching; simple past and past participle pouched)

1. (transitive) To enclose within a pouch.

   The beggar pouched the coin.

2. (transitive) To transport within a pouch, especially a diplomatic pouch.

   We pouched the encryption device to our embassy in Beijing.

3. (of fowls and fish) To swallow.
4. (obsolete, rare) To pout.
5. (obsolete) To pocket; to put up with.
   • 1822, [Walter Scott], The Pirate. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., →OCLC ↗:

     And for the value of the gowden piece , it shall never be said I pouched her siller