change purse

plural change purses

1. CanadaUSA small purse or pouch designed for carrying coins.

   1921, Almira Bailey, Vignettes of San Francisco, The San Francisco Journal, “Bags or Sacks,” p. 55, In the East a change purse is scorned by anything masculine, but here all the men carry one, I don’t know why not in the East, nor why in the West.

   3 more examples

   Not having enough money in her change-purse to pay for them, she took a roll of bills from a bill-fold in her inner pocket, and, taking five dollars from the roll, returned it to its place of safety in the lining of her coat.

   1919, Hildegard G. Frey, chapter 18, in The Camp Fire Girls Solve a Mystery, New York: A. L. Burt, page 198

   And off went packages and bundles and wallets and bags; they whirled around the cashier’s desk in a clutter, hands digging into pocketbooks seeking change-purses, and fingers rummaging in change-purses for coins, and down below, in a forest of alien legs and hems and overcoats, children no longer held by the hand became lost and started crying.

   1963, Italo Calvino, “Marcovaldo at the supermarket”, in William Weaver, transl., Marcovaldo, or The Seasons in the City, New York: Harcourt Brace, pages 84–85

   […] as any Commonwealth native knows just by sifting through her change purse, the Queen is the most pictured living person in history.

   2013 May 10, Leah McLaren, “Portrait of a lady: The delicate art of capturing the Queen”, in Maclean’s

   Synonyms: coin purse