A Short History of The Pocket

For several years I worked with a jingler, you know the type of person who constantly jingles the change in his pockets. He was a nice man, but the jingling drove me mad and I noticed it was much worse if he was anxious or if he was dealing with a difficult problem. Sometimes I wished that someone would sew all his pockets so that he couldn’t jingle, and that led me to wonder who first invented the pocket.

The origin of the word pocket gives us the clue to the evolution of the pocket. The word pocket is related to the word pouch and also to the almost forgotten word poke meaning a bag or sack. You may be familiar with the saying ‘a pig in a poke’, it is usually applied buying or being left with something useless. In the late middle ages when buying a piglet at market it was often put in a sack to transport it and tricksters would sometimes substitute a cat for the piglet so it was vital to inspect what you were buying carefully. To buy a pig in a poke (a pig in a sack) without inspecting it was foolish as you risked being left with something useless.

Anyway back to the origin of the word pocket, the two words pouch and poke provide the clue. In the middle ages the pocket began as a detachable bag or pouch worn inside the clothing for safety. This was inconvenient as it involved undoing the belt and fumbling inside the clothing in order to reach the money. Over the years trousers were made with a slit at the side to enable the person to reach his money without removing the belt. It was only a matter of time for someone decided to sew the pouch into the slit creating the pocket or ‘poke-ette’.

I guess from that time on little boys (and a few girls) have stuffed their pockets with all manner of dubious treasures, and men (and maybe some women) have jingled coins in their pockets.