Word.ws English Dictionary

under one's belt

under one's belt prepositional phrase: already done; within one's experience; practiced.

Prepositional phrase

  1. Already done; within one's experience; practiced.
    • He got off to a shaky start, but with a few months of experience under his belt, he kept up handily with the veteran employees.
    • You were fresh off the boat from Virginia / I had a year in New York City under my belt / We met in a dream, we were both nineteen1998, “Two Little Girls”, in Ani DiFranco (lyrics), Little Plastic Castle, performed by Ani DiFranco

Origin of under one's belt

Opinions vary between: * Comparing the experience and what was learned and gained from it to a meal now eaten and safely stowed away in the stomach. * The effect of a punch below the belt in boxing or other fist fighting.

Questions about under one's belt

What does under one's belt mean?
Under one's belt means already done; within one's experience; practiced.
What part of speech is under one's belt?
Under one's belt is a prepositional phrase.

Words near under one's belt in the dictionary

  1. under no circumstance
  2. under no circumstances
  3. under oath
  4. under one roof
  5. under one's arm
  6. under one's belt
  7. under one's breath
  8. under one's feet
  9. under one's hand
  10. under one's hat
  11. under one's own steam

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: under one's belt (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-under one's belt.wav.

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