saddlebag

plural saddlebags · alternative saddle bag · alternative saddle-bag

1. A covered pouch, usually one of a pair, laid across the back of a horse, donkey, or mule behind its saddle, or hanging over the rear wheel of a motorcycle; often made of leather or (on a motorcycle) a rigid material.

   The old cap-and-ball .44 was in Pa's saddle bag with its belt and powder flask and the leather sacks of lead bullets and caps.

   1950, Dorothy M. Johnson, Prairie Kid; in Indian Country, London: Corgi, 1961, page 47

   4 more examples

   By 1482 the printing capital of the world was Venice, and the busiest printer there was a man called Aldus Manutius who used to have a sign outside his shop saying 'If you would speak to Aldus, hurry — time presses'. He had good reason. No single printer did more to spread the printed word than he. Aldus knew that his market, and the market of all printers, lay not in the production of expensive, commissioned editions of the Bible or the Psalms, but in an inexpensive format that could easily be carried in a man's saddlebag wherever he went. So Aldus made his books small, and cheap. The Aldine Editions, as his new format was called, were the world's first pocket books, and they sold faster than he could produce them. Nearly half his workers were Greeks, exiles or refugees from the Byzantine Empire after the fall of Constantinople to the Turks. So it was that with the help of his translator-craftsmen, Aldus began the task of translating the Greek classics. When he died, in 1515, no major known Greek authors remained to be translated. Whatever happened in the Greek world, Aldus had ensured that the classical authors would not once again be lost to the West, as they had after the fall of Rome.

   1978, James Burke, Connections, Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN, page 105

   Frustrated, rushed, you toss the saddlebags filled with textbooks, ungraded papers, and drafts of poems onto the back of your cruiser motorcycle and roar off down Ambler not thinking speed and a strong crosswind will lift the saddlebags into flight like some leather-winged prehistoric bird hanging in the air a second before flopping onto the busiest street in North Abilene.

   2006, Robert Adon Fink, Twilight Innings: A West Texan on Grace and Survival, page 16

   Lifting the reins over the horse's head, he tied them to a nearby tree limb and moved back to the saddlebags. Untying the leather thongs that bound them behind the saddle, he picked the saddlebags up, hobbled to a nearby tree, and sat down at its base.

   2008, David Thomasson, The Ghost of Hollering Woman Creek, page 59

   There was no camp, bedroll, or fire and no other sign of a man, just the saddled horse with saddlebags and packs tied on behind it.

   2010, Frank W. Lewis, The Gold Rush: 1847-1849, page 417

2. broadlynonstandardcyclingpannier
3. cyclingA seat pack or a seat bag (a pouch or a small bag attached to the seat or seat post of a bicycle)
4. USin pluralinformalLoose fatty flesh on a person's upper thighs or buttocks, that hangs like saddlebags.

   The area treated was always the side of the thighs, where she had visible saddlebags.

   2002, Maria Makarovic, Doctor Help Me Slim Down!: Firm Up and Get Rid of Cellulite!, iUniverse, →ISBN, page 141

   Synonyms: riding breeches

5. architectureA style of house with two rooms separated by a small hall and open space.

present singular third person saddlebags · participle present saddlebagging · participle past saddlebagged · past saddlebagged · alternative saddle bag · alternative saddle-bag

1. transitiveTo place in a saddlebag.
2. transitiveTo put a saddlebag on (an animal).