Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A saddlebag.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A saddle-bag; knapsack; wallet.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Sp. Amer. A saddlebag.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun a saddlebag.
  • noun a cheek pouch.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Spanish, from Old Spanish, from Arabic al-ḫurj : al-, the + ḫurj, saddlebag; akin to Persian khurjīn.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Spanish Andalusian Arabic  (alẖurǧ), from Spanish  (al, "of the") + Arabic خرج (ẖurj, "saddlebag").

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word alforja.

Examples

  • You sneak off and roll up that piece of buckskin, and thrust it into the alforja.

    The Mountains Stewart Edward White 1909

  • About a week later one of your companions drags out of the alforja something crumpled that resembles in general appearance and texture a rusted five-gallon coal-oil can that has been in a wreck.

    The Mountains Stewart Edward White 1909

  • About a week later one of your companions drags out of the alforja something crumpled that resembles in general appearance and texture a rusted five-gallon

    The Mountains 1904

  • You sneak off and roll up that piece of buckskin, and thrust it into the alforja.

    The Mountains 1904

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • "The apothecary ... was a little old withered man, with a forehead about an inch high, a nose turned up at the end, large cheek-bones that helped to form a pit for his little gray eyes, a great bag of loose skin hanging down on each side in wrinkles, like the alforjas of a baboon, and a mouth so much accustomed to that contraction which produces grinning, that he could not pronounce a syllable without discovering the remains of his teeth, which consisted of four yellow fangs, not improperly, by anatomists, called canine."

    - Smollett, Roderick Random, 1748

    May 21, 2014