barracks bag

noun

1. a large bag of heavy cotton, closed with a drawstring, used by military personnel for carrying personal belongings.

Word History and Origins

Origin of barracks bag¹

First recorded in 1940–45

Example Sentences

Then in summer uniforms, and each with a big blue barracks bag crowded with personal belongings, extra uniform, shoes, blanket and what not, on our shoulders, we lined up, shouted last farewells and stepped off, down the barracks street and out toward the railroad station.

From Project Gutenberg

On his first furlough back to Somerset, Private Cooper was followed off the train by a fierce-looking master sergeant, who deposited Cooper's barracks bag on the platform, bade him goodbye, and climbed back aboard.

From Time Magazine Archive

The Pennsylvania Railroad, which had been sued for $384,245 triple damages by OPS for raising its station pay-toilet rate from 5� t010� can now do so, thanks to an amendment tacked on by Delaware's Democratic Senator J. Allen Frear Jr. One day in 1945 Rod Geiger, an American G.I., came back from Italy with an odd trophy in his barracks bag : a print of Roberto Rossellini's Open City, one of the first movies made in liberated Italy.

From Time Magazine Archive

His father talked, all the time eying Horn curiously, until Horn finally opened his bulging barracks bag and hauled out his souvenirs�Luger pistols, German helmets, Nazi medals.

From Time Magazine Archive

To the next WAC he said: "What's in that barracks bag?"

From Time Magazine Archive