blue bag

English

Noun

blue bag (plural blue bags)

1. A lawyer's bag made of blue fabric to carry briefs, now as typically carried by a junior barrister. [from 18th c.]
   • 1852 March – 1853 September, Charles Dickens, Bleak House, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1853, →OCLC:

     A battery of blue bags is loaded with heavy charges of papers and carried off by clerks.

2. A bag containing alkaline blue laundry powder, used for whitening clothes. [from 19th c.]
   • 1828, JT Smith, Nollekens and His Times, Century Hutchinson, published 1986, page 73:

     ‘Nolly, Nolly,’ observed the Doctor, ‘I wish your maid would stop your foolish mouth with a blue-bag.’