Word.ws English Dictionary

bellows to mend

bellows to mend phrase: out of breath.

Phrase

bellows to mend

  1. (UK, obsolete, slang) out of breath
    • This constitutes the process of respiration or breathing, and on its due performance will chiefly depend the health and usefulness of the animal. A horse calling “bellows-to-mend” is fit for little.1859, James Crawford Ledlie Carson, The Form of the Horse, page 25
    • A pause now took place, and some mutual feinting and dodging, it being 'bellows to mend' on each side.1897, R. G. Allanson-Winn, Bertram Fletcher Robinson, Boxing, page 72

Questions about bellows to mend

What does bellows to mend mean?
Bellows to mend means out of breath.
What part of speech is bellows to mend?
Bellows to mend is a phrase.

Words near bellows to mend in the dictionary

  1. bellowing out
  2. bellowings
  3. bellows
  4. Bellows Falls
  5. bellows out
  6. bellows to mend
  7. bellowsed
  8. bellowser
  9. bellowsers
  10. bellowses
  11. bellowsfish

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bellows to mend (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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