Word.ws English Dictionary

pursse

pursse is the obsolete spelling of purse.

Meaning of purse

Noun

purse (plural purses)

  1. A small bag for carrying money.
    • And then muſt many a man occupie as farre as his purſe would reache, and ſtretche out his legges accordynge to the length of his couerlet.1550, Steuen Mierdman, The market or fayre of usurers
  2. (US) A handbag (small bag usually used by women for carrying various small personal items)
    • Master leathercrafter does handcrafted wallets, belts, purses, handbags etc., supporting self and helpers. Good enough to carve fantst art and portraits into leather.1987 August 15, Robert Benitez, “Personal advertisement”, in Gay Community News, volume 15, number 5, page 14
    Synonyms:
    handbag
  3. A quantity of money given for a particular purpose.
    • It was a historic and a hefty battle when Myler and Percy were scheduled to don the gloves for the purse of fifty sovereigns.1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[[Episode 12: The Cyclops]]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC
    Synonyms:
    bursary, grant, funds
  4. (historical) A specific sum of money in certain countries: formerly 500 piastres in Turkey or 50 tomans in Persia.

See all 9 meanings of purse

Forms of pursse

pluralpursses

Questions about pursse

What is pursse the obsolete spelling of?
Pursse is the obsolete spelling of purse.

Words near pursse in the dictionary

  1. purslane tree
  2. purslanes
  3. pursley
  4. Pursleys
  5. Purslow
  6. pursse
  7. pursuable
  8. pursual
  9. pursuals
  10. pursuance
  11. pursuances

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pursse (page history and authors); purse (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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Cite this entry: “pursse.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pursse. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.