belly-timber
/ˈbɛliˌtɪmbə/
belly-timber noun: food, provender.
Noun
belly-timber (usually uncountable, plural belly-timbers)
- Food, provender.
- And tho' knights errant, as some think, / Of old did neither eat nor drink, / Because when thorough deserts vast, / And regions desolate, they past, / Where belly-timber above ground, / Or under, was not to be found …1663, Samuel Butler, Hudibras, London: Printed by J. G. for Richard Marriot, under Saint Dunstan's Church in Fleetstreet, OCLC 43488441; republished as Henry G[eorge] Bohn, editor, Hudibras, by...
- The strength of every other member / Is founded on your belly-timber; / The qualms or raptures of your blood, / Rise in proportion to your food; …1718, Matthew Prior, "Alma; or, The Progress of the Mind", in Poems on Several Occasions, London: J[acob] Tonson and J. Barber, OCLC 458176403, canto III; republished in Samuel Johnson; Alexander...
Synonyms of belly-timber
24 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of belly-timber
| plural | belly-timbers |
|---|---|
| alternative form | bellytimber |
| alternative form | belly-tember |
| alternative form | belly-timmer |
Origin of belly-timber
From belly + timber.
Questions about belly-timber
- What does belly-timber mean?
- Belly-timber means food, provender.
- What part of speech is belly-timber?
- Belly-timber is a noun.
- How do you pronounce belly-timber?
- Belly-timber is pronounced /ˈbɛliˌtɪmbə/.
- What is the plural of belly-timber?
- The plural of belly-timber is belly-timbers.
Words near belly-timber in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: belly-timber (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-belly-timber.wav.
Cite this entry: “belly-timber.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/belly-timber. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.