Growing up (60’s/70’s) I occasionally heard the jersey of a baseball uniform described as a “blouse”. It made sense since until roughly the early 1960’s baseball jerseys were baggy relative to other men’s shirts. Then they got skin tight, and then semi-baggy, but the word disappeared and now I never hear it for anything except women’s clothing, and even then not so often.
Replies so far have nailed it. My ~85-year old grandmother calls it a pocketbook. She’s the only one who I’ve ever heard use the term. (Other fun anachronisms I learned as my grandfather’s favorite phrases: “Well I’ll be a son of a gun”, and “How about them apples?”)
I hear pocketbook to mean a purse all the time here in the South, but it usually older people. The small leather object that holds my credit cards cash and a few pictures is my wallet. The bag it is in is my purse. I only hear handbag, crossbody,satchel etc from snooty purse salesladies.
And then, to add to the confusion, there is also the verb “to blouse”. It is possible to blouse a man’s shirt, although a man’s shirt is rarely called a blouse nowadays.
Yes. I’ve heard the term “vote their pocketbooks” and tended to think it meant “wallet”. But, I’ve also seen references to a woman taking some good sized object and “putting it in her pocketbook”, without ever wondering “how the heck did she fit that in a wallet?!”.
Actually men’s and unisex shirts are sometimes called blouses. I’ve seen the term used to refer to military uniforms for men; “he pulled on his uniform blouse”. It’s mostly a term for female clothing these days, but not universally. From the Wiki page:
I have a thought, but I’m not sure how to verify it: how old is the term “vote with their/your/my pocketbook(s)”? Does it pre or postdate women receiving voting rights, in whichever country the term is from? Google isn’t helping.
A lot of these are from French. A chemise in modern English is women’s sleepwear that is kind of sexy. In French it’s a… men’s dress shirt. They would use chemise de nuit for the former, or maybe that’s camisole, I don’t really know the difference. Blouse some sort of overgarment. And of course, the Australian word “thongs” is less gendered in other Anglophone countries.
Pocketbook and purse are synonymous to me. The terms are interchangeable and I hear both. (New York)
My very American MIL uses the term “handbag.” My mom calls it a pocketbook, and I say purse. My daughter is very confused.
I’ve always thought a pocketbook was the thing you put inside a purse (or just carry around I guess). When I was a little kid if my mom had asked me to get her her pocketbook I would’ve known to go into her purse and get out the thing inside. It’s like a wallet but bigger. Like one of these (specifically the long ones on the right).
Men’s wallets were more capacious at one time, too. I seem to recall at least one Civil-War era reference to a man drawing a cheroot from his wallet. It was presumably a flat notecase that also had room for his cigars.
Hence my use of the qualifier “commonly”. I’m familiar with poet’s shirts, which unquestionably blouse (and are remarkably comfortable, though probably unsafe if you’re operating machinery).
I fear I did not make myself clear. Yes, I have always heard ladies’ tops or “shirts” called “blouses.” Always. I have never ever, not even once in my life that I can recall, heard a man’s shirt referred to as a “blouse.” That practice, from what I can tell, died out along with 18th-century highwaymen.
Now, how about “wallet” versus “billfold”? I think there may have already been a thread on that. But I do believe I heard both while growing up, but “wallet” definitely the majority of times.
For me purse and pocketbook are the same thing. I have seldom heard handbag, it’s the same thing except I think of handbags as being the larger type of purse or pocketbook.
A wallet holds money, credit cards, pictures, etc. and is carried in the purse, pocketbook or handbag.
For men a wallet is what is carried in the back pocket and holds money, pictures, credit cards, little slips of paper with phone numbers, etc. A billfold is a thinner wallet that carries only money. A money clip is made of metal and holds folded bills.
A little black book is where a man compiles all those little slips of paper with phone numbers, usually in alphabetical order by first name. Sometimes there are star ratings. Sometimes the little black book would fit in the wallet right next to the condom, sometimes not.
A blouse is a womans dressy shirt. It is made of a thinner material and should have a collar and buttons, possibly lace or frills.
My Granny is from small-town Amish country Indiana, and she’s always called her purse a pocketbook. She also calls a couch a davenport, for what it’s worth.
Great Og! Are you my cousin? 
I grew up where your granny did, with a hillbilly mother and a father with both PA Dutch and Polish roots. My dad (like his mother before him) uses pocketbook and davenport. My mom uses pocketbook and sofa. Both use billfold for the thing a man carries his cash / plastic in.
Me? I’ve lived quite a few years of my adult life in the midsouth and tend to use pocketbook more than purse.
SiamSam apparently did, though he phrased it in a way that mildly grinds my gears (but let me stress I don’t believe he intended to or anything). Apparently men’s shirts are “normal” shirts, and [del]women’s[/del] ladies’ shirts are [del]abnormal[/del] ladies’.
Men’s = Normal
Women’s = Women’s
:dubious:
If that’s all you have to worry about, then you’re doing pretty good.
Why do Americans call leather pocket money envelopes “wallets”? They don’t go on a wall.
Not even remotely parallel. “Pocketbook” is clearly a compound of the common words “pocket” and “book.” “Wallet” has no etymological connection to “wall.” You’re suggesting that no one should ever be curious about the origins of a particular usage, which would be a surprise to any linguist.
Yeah, but a size is “normal” if it is sized in inches or cm, and not normal if it has some arbitrary number or anme. 
Why do they call it “woosh”? It’s not like you have to scream “woo” when it happens. And what’s the deal with airline food?
I read about pocketbooks in Sweet Valley High in my tweens (before that word existed), and tentatively theorised that it meant day planner. Then they started puling stuff other than money in and out of it and I wondered how they fit their lipstick (etc.) in there. Day planner… It’s sort of pockety, and book-like.
Personally, I keep my money and credit cards in my purse, which I carry along with a metric ton of accumulated junk in my handbag. I noticed on Google image search that if you enter purse, you get images of handbags, but if you add “site:au” (no quotes), you get coin purses, which has made me reflect that what I call my purse is actually a ladies wallet.