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View synonyms for pocket money

pocket money

noun

  1. money for small, current expenses.


pocket money

noun

  1. a small weekly sum of money given to children by parents as an allowance
  2. money for day-to-day spending, incidental expenses, etc


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Word History and Origins

Origin of pocket money1

First recorded in 1625–35

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Idioms and Phrases

Also, spending money . Cash for incidental or minor expenses, as in They don't believe in giving the children pocket money without asking them to do chores , or Can I borrow a dollar? I'm out of all my spending money . The first term, dating from the early 1600s, alludes to keeping small sums in one's pocket; the second alludes to money that may be spent (as opposed to saved) and dates from the late 1500s.

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Example Sentences

He told them he had bought a Scalextric car set with his pocket money when he was younger.

Sondra Wiener, forced to make pocket money like an out-of-work laborer, endures the pity of her neighbors.

The money in the possession of "Commercial depositors" we shall call "till money," and the rest "pocket money."

Some of them perhaps get half-a-crown a month as pocket money; but that will neither kill nor cure a man.

You have worked him like a navvy, and never given him enough pocket money to keep him in tobacco even.

At home my chums and I used to part with our pocket money at a tea-room called Sargents.

Beauties and joys he was to keep for pocket-money; small change is sometimes great gain.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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