Round 3567 POCHIN results

[Mike Shefler]

All submitters having voted, I am closing the round early. The next dealer is Tim Lodge with 5 "natural" points.

1.  A substituted name for an unspecified or unknown breed of dog.
  Submitter: Abell                    Votes: 7 & 11       0 + 1 =   1
  Voted for by: Boxer

2.  In Russia, a political dismissal disguised as a promotion.
  Submitter: Keating                  Votes: 3 & *15*     2 + 0 =   2
  Voted for by:                                                          

3.  A charcoal pit or kiln.
  Submitter: Mallach                  Votes: 9 & 13       0 + 4 =   4
  Voted for by: Keating; Davis; Rey; Bourne

4.  The dung of a cow, as it drops in a small heap.
  Submitter: Naylor                   Votes: 11 & 13      0 + 1 =   1
  Voted for by: Lodge

5.  The sperm whale equivalent of the melon or echo location tissue.
  Submitter: Barrs                    Votes: 7 & 11       0 + 0 =   0
  Voted for by:                                                          

6.  A type of soft cheese aged in birch bark.
  Submitter: Davis                    Votes: 3 & *15*     2 + 3 =   5
  Voted for by: Widdis; Shepherdson; Madnick

7.  A small leather pouch worn by medieval scribes to hold quill-trimming
knives.                                                                      
  Submitter: Widdis                   Votes: 6 & 10       0 + 4 =   4
  Voted for by: Abell; Barrs; Embler; Madnick

8.  Fast-growing deep-water invertebrates that anchor themselves to
underwater surfaces near hydrothermal vents and cold seeps.                  
  Submitter: Embler                   Votes: 7 & 11       0 + 0 =   0
  Voted for by:                                                          

9.  A small, decorative pillow used as a headrest.
  Submitter: Rey                      Votes: 3 & 13       0 + 2 =   2
  Voted for by: Mallach; Bourne

10.  The practice or art of using molds to make cheese.
  Submitter: Shepherdson              Votes: 6 & 11       0 + 1 =   1
  Voted for by: Widdis

11.  [Scot.]  A container for water, made from the stomach of a deer.
  Submitter: Lodge                    Votes: 4 & 13       0 + 5 =   5
  Voted for by: Abell; Naylor; Barrs; Embler; Shepherdson

12.  A small character at the end of justified lines of text to manage
uneven spacing.                                                              
  Submitter: Boxer                    Votes: 1 & *15*     2 + 0 =   2
  Voted for by:                                                          

13.  A kind of china clay used in fine pottery.
  Submitter: Bourne                   Votes: 3 & 9        0 + 4 =   4
  Voted for by: Mallach; Naylor; Rey; Lodge

14.  A fixed-rate surcharge applied to livestock transport fees under
legacy tariff systems.                                                        
  Submitter: Madnick                  Votes: 6 & 7        0 + 0 =   0
  Voted for by:                                                          

15.  A hedgehog.
  Submitter: Dictionary                Vote: N/A                   D3
  Voted for by: Keating; Davis; Boxer

[Shani Naylor]

Hi, that should be 3 for me as I voted for the real def.

Thanks 

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[Daniel B. Widdis]

I still don't believe the real def.

[Paul Keating]

Shani,

Your post of 2025-08-02 at 05h47 UTC says:

11 & 13, for no particular reason.

and it puts both definitions in the quoteback.

--

Paul Keating

Soustons, Nouvelle Aquitaine, France

[Shani Naylor]

My mistake.  I thought the water bag was the real def.

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[Paul Keating]

I believe Mike got his definition from Wright’s English Dialect Dictionary (because that is a favourite source of his) and it seems that Wright didn’t quite believe it either. 

He got it from Halliwell-Phillips (1846/7), who marked it Somerset, with no further indication of source. 

Wright marked it ‡ (obsolete, dubious) and added the remark unknown to our correspondents, indicating that he tried and failed to obtain corroboration. 

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Paul Keating

Soustons, Nouvelle Aquitaine, France

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[Tim Bourne]

> I still don't believe the real def.

I wonder where that definition comes from? I remember once reading a book by a Romany (Gypsy) who
called a hedgehog a hotchi, which sounds rather similar.

Best wishes,
Tim Bourne.

[Paul Keating]

See my post 06h09 UTC.

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[Chowie]

I also thought the water bag was the real def after voting and looking it up. John probably did since he also voted for it.

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~Bending under the weight of His mercies~

​"For we cannot do anything against the truth, 

but only for the truth​." 

II Corinthians 13:8

[Paul Keating]

According to to the French-language Wiktionary, pochin is an Old French word with the probable  meaning of  ‘little bag’, a diminutive of poche ‘bag’. Your French dictionary will probably tell you that today poche means ‘pocket’ or ‘pouch’, but here in the southwest of France, a shopkeeper may ask you if you want a poche to take your purchases away in.

That word poche is Germanic in origin: French got it from Frankish, and its English etymon still survives in the phrase a pig in a poke. 

But, in English, pochin seems only ever to have been a surname only, not a word with a definite meaning. 

I can’t find it in any English-language reference, other than Wright and Halliwell-Phillips, which give ‘hedgehog’. I even tried the University of Michigan’s Middle English dictionary, and the University of Aberystwyth's Anglo-Norman dictionary, and drew blanks there too.

With the one exception of Wiktionnaire's Old French citation, taken from Godefroy, all of the Google hits on pochin are for names (well, up to the first 6 pages, anyway).

P

[Shani Naylor]

AI confirmed it for me when I couldn't find it among all the pochin surnames. Clearly hallucinating & telling me what I wanted to hear.

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[Paul Keating]

At least one of the Google hits explains the "meaning" of the name. So it wasn't quite a hallucination. Maybe your prompt didn't make it clear enough that you wanted a definition of an actual English word.