1 [C] (especially BrE) a small bag made of leather, plastic, etc. for carrying coins and often also paper money, cards, etc., used especially by women:
I took a coin out of my purse and gave it to the child.
compareCHANGEPURSE, WALLET
2 [C] (AmE) = HANDBAG
3 [sing.] the amount of money that is available to a person, an organization or a government to spend:
We have holidays to suit every purse. * Should spending on the arts be met out of the public purse (= from government money)?
4 [C] (sport) a sum of money given as a prize in a boxing match
IDIOMS see SILK
Part of speech: verb
[VN] ~ your lips to form your lips into a small tight round shape, for example to show disapproval
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BRITISH/AMERICAN
purse / handbag / wallet
A purse (BrE) / a change purse or coin purse (AmE) is a small bag for carrying money, including coins.
A handbag (also purse in AmE) is a bag that women especially carry with them to hold their money, keys, etc.
A wallet (also billfold in AmE) is a small leather or plastic case used for keeping bank notes, cards, etc. in.
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for purse is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is purse a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, purse is tagged as noun.
Does purse appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — purse appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
