belly
Syllables: bel·ly/ˈbɛli/
belly noun: the abdomen (especially a fat one).
Noun
belly (plural bellies)
- The abdomen (especially a fat one).
- You've grown a belly over Christmas! Time to join the gym again.
- stomach (an organ in animals that stores food in the process of digestion)
- My belly was full of wine.
- uterus (a reproductive organ of therian mammals in which the young are conceived and develop until birth)
- Before I formed thee in the bellie, I knew thee; […]1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Jeremiah 1:5
- The lower fuselage of an airplane.
- There was no heat, and we shivered in the belly of the plane.1994, Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, London: Abacus, published 2010, page 454
- The part of anything which resembles (either closely or abstractly) the human belly in protuberance or in concavity; often, the fundus (innermost part).
- the belly of a flask, muscle, violin, sail, or ship
- […] I cried by reason of mine affliction vnto the Lord, and hee heard mee; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voyce.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Jonah 2:2
Verb
belly (third-person singular simple present bellies, present participle bellying, simple past and past participle bellied)
- To position one’s belly; to move on one’s belly.
- Bellying forward to the edge of the clearing, he found Hans, lying on his face, feathered with arrows like a porcupine.1903 July, Jack London, “The Sounding of the Call”, in The Call of the Wild, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., →OCLC, page 220
- To swell and become protuberant; to bulge or billow.
- The Pow'r appeaſ'd, with Winds ſuffic'd the Sail, / The bellying Canvaſs ſtrutted with the Gale; […]1700, [John] Dryden, “Homer’s Ilias”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, book I, page 213
- The halliards twanged against the tops, the bunting bellied broad,1890, Rudyard Kipling, The Rhyme of the Three Captains
- To cause to swell out; to fill.
- Your breath of full consent bellied his sails; […]c. 1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
- A breeze which had crossed a thousand miles of wheat-lands bellied her taffeta skirt in a line so graceful, so full of animation and moving beauty, that the heart of a chance watcher on the lower road tightened to wistfulness over her quality of suspended freedom.1920, Sinclair Lewis, chapter I, in Main Street: The Story of Carol Kennicott, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, →OCLC
belly meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
belly in Hindi
- abdomen — see also abdomen
- पेट peṭ, उदर udar, शिकम śikam
belly in Tamil
- abdomen — see also abdomen
- தொப்பை toppai, தொந்தி tonti
belly in Marathi
- belly, stomach, abdomen
- पोट poṭ
- belly, stomach
- उदर udar
belly in Urdu
- abdomen — see also abdomen
- پیٹ peṭ, شِکَم śikam, اُدَر udar
More languagesFewer languages
- belly in Bengali
- পেট peṭ
- belly in Telugu
- పొట్ట poṭṭa, కడుపు kaḍupu
- belly in Malayalam
- വയറ്
- belly in Kannada
- ಉದರ udara, ಬೊಜ್ಜು bojju
- belly in Punjabi
- ਢਿੱਡ ḍhiḍḍă, ڈھڈ ḍhiḍḍ, ਕੋਠਾ koṭhā, ਕੋੱਠਾ koṭṭhā
- belly in Odia
- ପେଟ peṭa, ଉଦର udara
- belly in Sanskrit
- उदर udara
- belly in Sinhala
- බඩ baḍa
- belly in Assamese
- পেট pet
- belly in Pashto
- نس nas, خېټه xéṭa
- belly in Tagalog
- tiyan, puson
- belly in Arabic
- بَطْن baṭn
- belly in Malay
- perut
- belly in Indonesian
- perut
- belly in Thai
- ท้อง tɔ́ɔng, พุง pung
- belly in Vietnamese
- bụng
- belly in Myanmar
- ဗိုက် buik, ဝမ်း wam:
Examples of belly in a sentence
- Get over here you little dogger! That belly needs some scritchin!
- The poor penurious horde, naught in the cooking pot and naught in the belly.
- So you've been feeling flutters in your belly for three days? Any other symptoms?
Synonyms of belly
1 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of belly
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | bellies |
| alternative form (archaic) | bellie |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | bellies |
| present participle | bellying |
| past participle | bellied |
| past | bellied |
Origin of belly
Inherited from Middle English bely, beli, bali, below, belew, balyw, from Old English bielġ (“bag, pouch, bulge”), from Proto-West Germanic *balgi, *balgu, from Proto-Germanic *balgiz, *balguz (“skin, hide, bellows, bag”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰelǵʰ- (“to swell, blow up”). Cognate with Dutch balg, German Balg, Danish bælg, Old Irish bolg, Welsh bol. Doublet of bellows, blague, bulge, and budge. See also bellows. For the belly — bellows relation, compare typologically Macedonian мев (mev, “abdomen, belly; bellows”). Also compare Ancient Greek φῦσα (phûsa, “bellows; bladder; ...”), Latin venter — vēsīca, Russian пу́зо (púzo) — пузы́рь (puzýrʹ), пузырёк (puzyrjók).
Words formed from belly
- Bali belly
- bean-belly
- beer belly
- bellyache
- belly-aching
- belly bag
- belly band
- belly-band
- bellyband
- belly boat
- belly breathing
- belly buster
- bellybutton
- belly button
- belly-button
- belly button ring
- belly chain
- bellycheer
- bellycrawl
- belly dance
- belly-dance
- belly dancer
- belly-dancer
- belly dancing
- belly-dumper
- belly dumper
- belly-flop
- belly flop
- bellyflop
- belly flopper
- bellyful
- belly-god
- belly itcher
- belly landing
- bellylaugh
- belly laugh
- belly-laugh
- bellyless
- bellylike
- bellyload
- belly of the beast
- belly of the whale
- belly pork
- belly ring
- bellyscraper
- belly shirt
- belly spark
- belly sweetbread
- belly-tember
- belly-timber
- belly-timmer
- belly trap
- belly-up
- belly-up peach
- belly up to the bar
- belly vengeance
- belly-wahk
- bellywark
- belly-wark
- bellywash
Phrases with belly
- belly up
- belly out
- pot belly
- belly bags
- belly wash
- belly whop
- belly wrap
- blue belly
- drum belly
- pink belly
- pork belly
- slow belly
50 more phrasesFewer phrases
- belly bands
- belly boats
- belly flops
- belly rings
- belly whops
- Delhi belly
- jelly belly
- sugar belly
- belly chains
- belly danced
- belly dances
- belly laughs
- belly shirts
- Buddha belly
- corona belly
- possum belly
- yellow belly
- belly busters
- belly buttons
- belly dancers
- belly dumpers
- belly flopped
- belly itchers
- belly laughed
- belly whopper
- empathy belly
- belly floppers
- belly flopping
- belly landings
- belly laughing
- belly whoppers
- porridge belly
- plead the belly
- pleads the belly
- belly sweetbreads
- fire in the belly
- fish belly girder
- pleaded the belly
- belly button rings
- fish belly girders
- pleading the belly
- Buddha belly bamboo
- double belly buster
- fire in one's belly
- wolf in one's belly
- Buddha belly bamboos
- double belly busters
- prune belly syndrome
- lower than a snake's belly
- one's belly thinks one's throat has been cut
Words that rhyme with belly
15 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about belly
- What does belly mean?
- Belly means the abdomen (especially a fat one).
- What is belly in Hindi?
- Belly in Hindi is पेट (peṭ), उदर (udar), शिकम (śikam). See Belly meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is belly?
- Belly can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce belly?
- Belly is pronounced /ˈbɛli/.
- What is the plural of belly?
- The plural of belly is bellies.
Words near belly in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: belly (page history and authors); उदर (Marathi) (page history and authors); belly (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ಉದರ (Kannada) (page history and authors); ڈھڈ (Punjabi) (page history and authors); බඩ (Sinhala) (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-belly.ogg.
Cite this entry: “belly.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/belly. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.