change purse

English

A kangaroo-skin change purse

Noun

change purse (plural change purses)

1. (chiefly Canada, US) A small purse or pouch designed for carrying coins.
   • 1919, Hildegard G. Frey, chapter 18, in The Camp Fire Girls Solve a Mystery‎^[1], New York: A. L. Burt, page 198:

     Not having enough money in her change-purse to pay for them, she took a roll of bills from a bill-fold in her inner pocket, and, taking five dollars from the roll, returned it to its place of safety in the lining of her coat.

   • 1921, Almira Bailey, Vignettes of San Francisco, The San Francisco Journal, “Bags or Sacks,” p. 55,^[2]

     In the East a change purse is scorned by anything masculine, but here all the men carry one, I don’t know why not in the East, nor why in the West.

   • 1963, Italo Calvino, “Marcovaldo at the supermarket”, in William Weaver, transl., Marcovaldo, or The Seasons in the City, New York: Harcourt Brace, pages 84–85:

     And off went packages and bundles and wallets and bags; they whirled around the cashier’s desk in a clutter, hands digging into pocketbooks seeking change-purses, and fingers rummaging in change-purses for coins, and down below, in a forest of alien legs and hems and overcoats, children no longer held by the hand became lost and started crying.

   • 2013 May 10, Leah McLaren, “Portrait of a lady: The delicate art of capturing the Queen”, in Maclean’s:

     […] as any Commonwealth native knows just by sifting through her change purse, the Queen is the most pictured living person in history.

Synonyms

• coin purse