Қолданбалы заттар сақтайтын қалташа немесе сөмкеше

Small, flat case or pouch that is used to carry personal items such as cash

A wallet is a flat case or pouch, often used to carry small personal items such as physical currency, debit cards, and credit cards; identification documents such as driving licence, identification card, club card; photographs, transit pass, business cards and other paper or laminated cards. Wallets are generally made of fabric or leather, and they are usually pocket sized and foldable. Wallets may include a money clip, coin purse, chain fastener, strap, snap, rein, or zipper. There are specialized wallets for holding passports, wearable ID cards, and checkbooks. Some unusual wallets are worn on the wrist or shoe. Wallets may be used as a fashion accessory, or to demonstrate the style, wealth, or social status of the owner.

The word originated in the late 14th century, meaning "bag" or "knapsack", from uncertain origin (Norman French golette (little snout)? ), or from similar Germanic word, from the Proto Germanic term "wall", which means "roll" (from the root "wel", meaning "to turn or revolve." (see for example "knapzak" in Dutch and Frisian). The early usage by Shakespeare described something that we would recognise as more like a backpack today. The modern meaning of "flat case for carrying paper money" is first recorded in 1834 in American English.

The classicist A. Y. Campbell set out to answer the question, "What in ancient literature, are the uses of a wallet?" He deduced, as a Theocritean scholar, that "the wallet was the poor man's portable larder; or, poverty apart, it was a thing that you stocked with provisions." He found that sometimes a man may be eating out of it directly but the most characteristic references allude to its being "replenished as a store", not in the manner of a lunch basket but more as a survival pack.

Wallets were developed after the introduction of paper currency to the West in the 1600s. (The first paper currency was introduced in the New World by the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1690.) Prior to the introduction of paper currency, coin purses (usually simple drawstring leather pouches) were used for storing coins. Early wallets were made primarily of cow or horse leather and included a small pouch for printed calling cards. In recounting the life of the Elizabethan merchant, John Frampton, Lawrence C. Wroth describes the merchant as, "a young English man of twenty five years, decently dressed, , wearing a sword, and carrying fixed to his belt something he called a 'bowgett' (or budget), that is, a leathern pouch or wallet in which he carried his cash, his book of accounts, and small articles of daily necessity".

In addition to money or currency, a wallet would also be used for carrying dried meat, victuals, "treasures", and "things not to be exposed". Wallets originally were used by early Industrial Americans. It was considered "semi civilized" in 19th century America to carry one's wallet on one's belt. At this time, carrying goods or a wallet in one's pocket was considered uncivilized and uncommon. In Spain, a wallet was a case for smoking paraphernalia: "Every man would carry a small sheaf of white paper in addition to a small leather wallet which would contain a flint and steel along with a small quantity of so called yesca, being a dried vegetable fibre which a spark would instantly ignite."

The modern bi fold wallet with multiple "card slots" became standardized in the early 1950s with the introduction of the first credit cards. Some innovations include the introduction of the velcro closure wallet in the 1970s. Pocket sized wallets remain popular to this day. For cryptocurrencies that only exist in cyberspace as entries in some online ledger, a "cryptocurrency wallet" is a computing tool whose purpose is to securely keep the owner’s secret key, to authenticate the owner, and to let the owner sign transactions securely. A "hardware wallet" is a single purpose computer to do this even more safely.

The traditional material for wallets is leather or fabric, but many other flexible flat sheet materials can be used in their fabrication. Non woven textiles such as Tyvek are used, sometimes including reuse of waterproof maps printed on that material. Woven metals, such as fine mesh made of copper or stainless steel have been incorporated into wallets that are promoted as having electromagnetic shielding properties to protect against unauthorized scanning of embedded NFC & RFID tags. Do it yourself websites such as Instructables feature many projects for making wallets out of materials such as denim, Kevlar, or duct tape.

Some wallets, particularly in Europe where larger value coins are prevalent, contain a coin purse compartment. Some wallets have built in clasps or bands to keep them closed. As European banknotes, such as euros and pounds, are typically larger than American banknotes in size, they do not fit in some smaller American wallets.

The term wallet is also used as a synecdoche to refer to an individual's overall personal budget. One of the definitions of "syndecdoche", by Sasse, uses a wallet reference as an example of the meaning of the term ("an abbreviated speech in which the containing vessel is mentioned instead of its contents"), such as when a person holds up their wallet to a person asking for money, while saying "here is $100". A wallet is also used as an example in a definition for the related rhetorical device of metonymy: "If we cannot strike offenders in the heart, let us strike them in the wallet."