Word.ws English Dictionary

haversack

/ˈhævəsæk/

haversack noun: a small, strong bag carried on the back or the shoulder, usually with only one strap, and originally made of canvas.

haversack: a small, strong bag carried on the back or the shoulder, usually with only one strap, and...
Image: CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

haversack (plural haversacks)

  1. A small, strong bag carried on the back or the shoulder, usually with only one strap, and originally made of canvas.
    • And most significant, these hordes of nonmotorized tourists, hungry for a taste of the difficult, the original, the real, do not consist solely of people young and athletic but also of old folks, fat folks, pale-faced office clerks who don’t know a rucksack from a haversack, and even children.1968, Edward Abbey, “Polemic: Industrial Tourism and the National Parks”, in Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness, McGraw-Hill; republished New York: Touchstone, 1968, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 49
    • When I went, I left from the station / With a haversack and some trepidation1990, Chris Lowe, Neil Tennant, “Being Boring”, performed by Pet Shop Boys
  2. (archaic) An oat-sack, or nosebag for a horse.

haversack meaning in Tamil and Malayalam

haversack in Tamil

படைவீரரின் உணவுப்பை

haversack in Malayalam

മാറാപ്പുസഞ്ചി

Forms of haversack

pluralhaversacks

Origin of haversack

From French havresac, from Low German Haaversack and/or German Habersack, Hafersack (literally “oat-sack”), from Hafer + Sack. Compare also Dutch haverzak.

Questions about haversack

What does haversack mean?
Haversack means a small, strong bag carried on the back or the shoulder, usually with only one strap, and originally made of canvas.
What is haversack in Tamil?
Haversack in Tamil is படைவீரரின் உணவுப்பை. See Haversack meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is haversack?
Haversack is a noun.
How do you pronounce haversack?
Haversack is pronounced /ˈhævəsæk/ (UK).
What is the plural of haversack?
The plural of haversack is haversacks.

Words near haversack in the dictionary

  1. Haverly
  2. Haverlys
  3. haverot
  4. haveroth
  5. havers
  6. haversack
  7. haversacked
  8. haversacks
  9. haversed sine
  10. haversed sines
  11. haversian

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: haversack (page history and authors); haversack (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); haversack (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-haversack.wav.

Cite this entry: “haversack.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/haversack. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.