"in one's back pocket" meaning in English

See in one's back pocket in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Prepositional phrase

Head templates: {{head|en|prepositional phrase|head=in one's back pocket}} in one's back pocket, {{en-pp|head=in one's back pocket}} in one's back pocket
  1. (idiomatic) Ready if needed, in reserve, prepared, available for use whenever it might be advantageous. Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: in one's hip pocket Related terms: in one's pocket
    Sense id: en-in_one's_back_pocket-en-prep_phrase-cxJPsuBn Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Download JSON data for in one's back pocket meaning in English (2.5kB)

{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "prepositional phrase",
        "head": "in one's back pocket"
      },
      "expansion": "in one's back pocket",
      "name": "head"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "head": "in one's back pocket"
      },
      "expansion": "in one's back pocket",
      "name": "en-pp"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "prep_phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2008 July 16, David Friend, “New owner to spruce up Bay”, in The Star, Toronto, Canada, retrieved 2019-01-29",
          "text": "There’s tremendous opportunities at The Bay in order to modify the offering in order to be attractive to a larger segment to the population. […] Having the Lord & Taylor banner in their back pocket, they’ve got an extra option there.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010 March 4, Sheelah Kolhatkar, “Eliot Spitzer's Mission Impossible”, in Time, retrieved 2019-01-29",
          "text": "Spitzer thinks it's an outrage that the same bankers who brought down the world economy are still firmly in place, bonuses in hand, a government guarantee in their back pocket.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010 June 18, Ben Greenman, “King of His Multigenerational Castle?”, in New York Times, retrieved 2019-01-29",
          "text": "I didn’t mention my son’s remark to my parents because it seemed emotionally manipulative, but I have it in my back pocket just in case.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2015 June 4, Sophy Ridge, “Angela Merkel is finally having her feminist moment”, in Telegraph, UK, retrieved 2019-01-29",
          "text": "[S]he bosses around all the blokes in the European Union; has won three elections; and even has a physics degree in her back pocket.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Ready if needed, in reserve, prepared, available for use whenever it might be advantageous."
      ],
      "id": "en-in_one's_back_pocket-en-prep_phrase-cxJPsuBn",
      "links": [
        [
          "Ready",
          "ready"
        ],
        [
          "needed",
          "needed"
        ],
        [
          "in reserve",
          "in reserve"
        ],
        [
          "prepared",
          "prepared"
        ],
        [
          "available",
          "available"
        ],
        [
          "use",
          "use"
        ],
        [
          "whenever",
          "whenever"
        ],
        [
          "might",
          "might"
        ],
        [
          "advantageous",
          "advantageous"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) Ready if needed, in reserve, prepared, available for use whenever it might be advantageous."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "in one's pocket"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "in one's hip pocket"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "in one's back pocket"
}
{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "prepositional phrase",
        "head": "in one's back pocket"
      },
      "expansion": "in one's back pocket",
      "name": "head"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "head": "in one's back pocket"
      },
      "expansion": "in one's back pocket",
      "name": "en-pp"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "prep_phrase",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "in one's pocket"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English prepositional phrases",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2008 July 16, David Friend, “New owner to spruce up Bay”, in The Star, Toronto, Canada, retrieved 2019-01-29",
          "text": "There’s tremendous opportunities at The Bay in order to modify the offering in order to be attractive to a larger segment to the population. […] Having the Lord & Taylor banner in their back pocket, they’ve got an extra option there.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010 March 4, Sheelah Kolhatkar, “Eliot Spitzer's Mission Impossible”, in Time, retrieved 2019-01-29",
          "text": "Spitzer thinks it's an outrage that the same bankers who brought down the world economy are still firmly in place, bonuses in hand, a government guarantee in their back pocket.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010 June 18, Ben Greenman, “King of His Multigenerational Castle?”, in New York Times, retrieved 2019-01-29",
          "text": "I didn’t mention my son’s remark to my parents because it seemed emotionally manipulative, but I have it in my back pocket just in case.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2015 June 4, Sophy Ridge, “Angela Merkel is finally having her feminist moment”, in Telegraph, UK, retrieved 2019-01-29",
          "text": "[S]he bosses around all the blokes in the European Union; has won three elections; and even has a physics degree in her back pocket.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Ready if needed, in reserve, prepared, available for use whenever it might be advantageous."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "Ready",
          "ready"
        ],
        [
          "needed",
          "needed"
        ],
        [
          "in reserve",
          "in reserve"
        ],
        [
          "prepared",
          "prepared"
        ],
        [
          "available",
          "available"
        ],
        [
          "use",
          "use"
        ],
        [
          "whenever",
          "whenever"
        ],
        [
          "might",
          "might"
        ],
        [
          "advantageous",
          "advantageous"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) Ready if needed, in reserve, prepared, available for use whenever it might be advantageous."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "in one's hip pocket"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "in one's back pocket"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-05 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.