back-pocket

See also: backpocket and back pocket

English[edit]

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

(transitive) To put (something) into a back pocket.
- 2003, Robert Eversz, Burning Garbo: A Nina Zero Novel, New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, published 2005, →ISBN, page 23:
  “Right.” He back-pocketed the notebook and lifted the Nikon from my bag. “Take a few steps down the hill and point toward the ruins so I can get both in one shot.”
(transitive, idiomatic) To put (something) aside for future use; to keep in reserve.
- 2019 June 7, Scott Allen, “How Mumford and Sons became the soundtrack for Capitals’ Stanley Cup triumph”, in The Washington Post‎^[1]:
  “All the lyrics talk about is humility and heartbreak, and then at the end it’s exuberance and joy,” Hines said. “The only way that fits is if the Caps win the Stanley Cup, so I sort of back-pocketed the idea for years. I put together multiple iterations of it in my head, and it just never panned out, because they never ended up finishing the deal.”