Satchel (bag)

A satchel is a bag, often with a strap. The strap is often worn so that it diagonally crosses the body, with the bag hanging on the opposite hip, rather than hanging directly down from the shoulder. They are traditionally used for carrying books. The back of a satchel extends to form a flap that folds over to cover the top and fastens in the front. Unlike a briefcase, a satchel is soft-sided.

Roman legionaries carried a satchel (a loculus).

A carriel is "a small leather satchel from Colombia with a long history dating back 400 years".

A photo from the Bain News Service shows Camille Saint-Saëns carrying a satchel in the United States in 1915.

Letter carriers in many countries (including the United States) carry a mail satchel.

The traditional Oxford and Cambridge style satchel is a simple design that features a simple pouch with a front flap. Variations include designs with a single or double pocket on the front and sometimes a handle on the top of the bag. The classic school bag satchel often had two straps, so that it could be worn like a backpack, with the design having the straps coming in a V from the centre of the back of the bag, rather than separate straps on each side. This style is sometimes called a satchel backpack.

A cover illustration from The Queenslander Illustrated Weekly on January 31, 1929 shows a school bag taunting a schoolboy.

There is an example of a schoolboy's satchel in the collection of London's Victoria and Albert Museum.

The school satchel is described as "the bag of choice for 1950s children".

A 1959 photo shows schoolgirls with satchels (schooltassen) in the Netherlands.

The use of school bag satchels is common in the United Kingdom, Australia, Western Europe and Japan. In Japan the term for a school bag satchel is randoseru. The Unicode for the school satchel Emoji is U+1F392.

In cases where the school bag is a hard-sided box, it is a briefcase rather than a satchel.

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Wikipedia