Idiom
Out of pocket
Out of pocket means paying with your own money, or having lost money; in American English it can also mean away and hard to reach.
How people use it
This phrase has three senses, so context matters. The money sense is used everywhere: if you pay out of pocket, you cover a cost yourself, often hoping to be paid back, and if you end up out of pocket, you have lost money. Health insurance talk uses out-of-pocket costs for what you pay beyond your coverage. In the US, a person who is out of pocket is busy or unreachable for a while (I'll be out of pocket until Monday). Newer American slang uses it for behavior that is rude or way over the line, as in that comment was out of pocket. Note the hyphens before a noun: out-of-pocket expenses.
Also said: pay out of pocket, out-of-pocket costs.
Examples
- I paid for the team's pizza out of pocket, so I need to give the receipt to accounting.
- Ana will be out of pocket on a hiking trip this weekend, so text her brother instead.
- After the concert was canceled, we were fifty dollars out of pocket for the parking pass.
Where it comes from
The money sense is the oldest and is easy to picture: money leaves your pocket and does not come back. It was in use by the 1700s. The American sense of being unavailable showed up in the 1900s, and no one knows for sure how it grew from the money meaning. The slang sense of acting wildly out of line spread from African American English and became widely popular online in the 2010s.
Check yourself
1. Your manager emails, "I'll be out of pocket tomorrow afternoon." What does she most likely mean?
Answer: She will be hard to reach. In American English, out of pocket often means away or unavailable for a short time.
2. Which sentence uses the money sense of the idiom?
Answer: We paid for the repairs out of pocket and hope insurance covers it.. Paying out of pocket means using your own money, which is the money sense.
Similar idioms
Word game fan? See every word hiding in POCKET.