Word.ws English Dictionary

in one's back pocket

in one's back pocket prepositional phrase: ready if needed, in reserve, prepared, available for use whenever it might be advantageous.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (idiomatic) Ready if needed, in reserve, prepared, available for use whenever it might be advantageous.
    • 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.2008 July 16, David Friend, “New owner to spruce up Bay”, in The Star, Toronto, Canada, retrieved 29 Jan 2019
    • 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.2010 March 4, Sheelah Kolhatkar, “Eliot Spitzer's Mission Impossible”, in Time, retrieved 29 Jan 2019

Synonyms of in one's back pocket

Questions about in one's back pocket

What does in one's back pocket mean?
In one's back pocket means ready if needed, in reserve, prepared, available for use whenever it might be advantageous.
What part of speech is in one's back pocket?
In one's back pocket is a prepositional phrase.

Words near in one's back pocket in the dictionary

  1. in one piece
  2. in one sitting
  3. in one stroke
  4. in one voice
  5. in one's altitudes
  6. in one's back pocket
  7. in one's backyard
  8. in one's bare skin
  9. in one's bones
  10. in one's book
  11. in one's born days

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: in one's back pocket (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.

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