Word.ws English Dictionary

bellying up

bellying up is the present participle and gerund of belly up.

Meaning of belly up

Verb

belly up (third-person singular simple present bellies up, present participle bellying up, simple past and past participle bellied up)

  1. (idiomatic, intransitive) To gather close, or approach eagerly or assertively, as a bar for ordering alcoholic drinks.
    • He bellied up to the bar as soon as he saw a free stool.
  2. (intransitive) To die; to fail or go out of business.
  3. (intransitive) To lay on the back with its belly up.

See all 4 meanings of belly up

Questions about bellying up

What is bellying up the present participle and gerund of?
Bellying up is the present participle and gerund of belly up.

Words near bellying up in the dictionary

  1. bellyfuls
  2. bellyhold
  3. bellyholds
  4. bellying
  5. bellying out
  6. bellying up
  7. bellying up to the bar
  8. bellyings
  9. bellyland
  10. bellylaugh
  11. bellylaughed

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bellying up (page history and authors); belly up (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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Cite this entry: “bellying up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bellying_up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.