Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The underside of the body of certain vertebrates, such as snakes and fish.
  • noun The stomach.
  • noun An appetite for food.
  • noun The womb; the uterus.
  • noun A part that bulges or protrudes.
  • noun Anatomy The bulging, central part of a muscle.
  • noun A deep or central interior space.
  • intransitive & transitive verb To bulge or cause to bulge. synonym: bulge.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun That part of the human body which extends from the breast to the groin, and contains the bowels: the part of the trunk between the diaphragm and the pelvis, considered as to its front and side walls and its cavity and contents; the abdomen. See cut under abdomen.
  • noun The part of any animal which corresponds to the human belly; the abdomen in general.
  • noun The stomach with its adjuncts: as, a hungry belly.
  • noun The womb.
  • noun The fleshy part of a muscle, as distinguished from its tendinous portion: as, the anterior belly of the digastricus muscle.
  • noun The hollow or interior of an inclosed place.
  • noun The part of anything which resembles the belly in protuberance or cavity, as of a bottle, a tool, a sail filled by the wind, a blast-furnace, etc.
  • noun In technology, the inner, lower, or front surface or edge of anything.
  • To fill; swell out.
  • To swell and become protuberant, like the belly; bulge out.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To swell and become protuberant, like the belly; to bulge.
  • noun That part of the human body which extends downward from the breast to the thighs, and contains the bowels, or intestines; the abdomen.
  • noun The under part of the body of animals, corresponding to the human belly.
  • noun obsolete The womb.
  • noun The part of anything which resembles the human belly in protuberance or in cavity; the innermost part.
  • noun (Arch.) The hollow part of a curved or bent timber, the convex part of which is the back.
  • noun a doublet of the 16th century, hanging down so as to cover the belly.
  • noun the chafing of a horse's belly with a girth.
  • noun [Ludicrous] food.
  • noun a worm that breeds or lives in the belly (stomach or intestines).
  • transitive verb rare To cause to swell out; to fill.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The abdomen.
  • noun The stomach, especially a fat one.
  • noun The lower fuselage of an airplane.
  • verb To position one's belly.
  • verb To swell and become protuberant; to bulge.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a part that bulges deeply
  • verb swell out or bulge out
  • noun a protruding abdomen
  • noun the region of the body of a vertebrate between the thorax and the pelvis
  • noun the hollow inside of something
  • noun the underpart of the body of certain vertebrates such as snakes or fish

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English beli, from Old English belg, bag; see bhelgh- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old English bælġ.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word belly.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.