Pickpocket

[Dr. Goodword]

• pickpocket •

Pronunciation: pik-pah-kit • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: A thief who steals by plucking valuables from the pockets of his victims without their knowing it.

Notes: The usual order of verb-noun compounds in English is noun-verb: haircut, babysit, and brainwash. However, older words, like today's, have the opposite order. Why this might be so is anyone's guess. It could be by analogy with onomatopoetic compounds imitating common sounds, like tick-tock, drip-drop and clip-clop. Whatever the reason, pick seems to participate in quite a few of these items: picklist, pickpurse, picklock, and pick-quarrel.

In Play: This word is so narrowly defined that we have no room for metaphoric manipulation: "Robin Banks got his start in thievery as a pickpocket." So let's just remind ourselves, keep your wallet pocket buttoned as protection against pickpockets.

Word History: Today's Good Word is a compound comprising pick + pocket. In Middle English pick was piken "to prick" from Old English pician "to prick", borrowed from Old French piquer "to pierce". This French word devolved from Vulgar (Street) Latin piccare "to peck". Apparently the Latin word was onomatopoetic.

Pocket started out as an Old North French diminutive of poque "bag" borrowed by English as poke in the sense of the old adage: "Don't buy a pig in a poke." French borrowed this word from English, then English borrowed it back along with its diminutive (poquette?), spelling it the English way, pocket. (Joakim Larsson of Sweden was kind enough to recommend today's double Good Word.)

[call_copse]

There does not appear to be a direct metaphorical usage; however we have at least in the UK a related metaphorical usage 'He/she has picked his/her pocket' commonly used in football (soccer that is for Americans) when a striker catches a defender unawares and steals the ball from them in an advantageous position. I don't know if that is used in any other context, and we don't refer to any of the players as an expert pickpocket to my knowledge, but it is feasible to see that it could be extended.

[LukeJavan8]

I'm lost on the pig in a poke. I've heard it but don't
get the meaning. Slow, I know.

[Dr. Goodword]

Don't buy a pig in a bag, i.e. without seeing it. A metaphor for "Don't buy anything blindly", "sight unseen".

[LukeJavan8]

makes sense,thanks, just could not get an image of
a pig in a poke. Sight unseen. Thanks a lot. My first
image was of the immense porkers on pig farms around
here, transported in semis and why would anyone
buy one other than food production, and what did a
poke have to do with it.

[Perry Lassiter]

Am Her Dict says poke is a southernism for sack or bag. Then it reports the following:

Word History: A pig in a poke is a colorful vernacular expression used to describe something offered in a manner that conceals its true nature or value. Naturally, a buyer cannot inspect the pig if it is covered by a poke—that is, a bag or sack. The word poke meaning "bag" is not confined to just the American South—in many parts of Scotland, poke bag is still used of a little paper bag for carrying purchases like candy. Poke first appears in English in the 1200s and probably comes from Old North French, the northern dialect of Old French. The Old North French word in turn is probably of Germanic origin and is related to words like Icelandic poki, "bag." Poke has several relatives within English. The word pocket comes from Middle English poket, meaning "pouch, small bag," which in turn comes from Anglo-Norman pokete, a diminutive of Old North French poke. Pouche, a variant form of Old North French poke, is the source of the English word pouch.

[LukeJavan8]

helps a lot, thanks.