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belt

Pronunciation: /ˈbɛlt/

The English word “belt” has 20 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A band worn around the waist to hold clothing to one's body (usually pants), hold weapons (such as a gun or sword), or serve as a decorative piece of clothing.
  2. A band used as a restraint for safety purposes, such as a seat belt.
  3. A band that is used in a machine to help transfer motion or power.
  4. Anything that resembles a belt, or that encircles or crosses like a belt; a strip or stripe.
  5. A trophy in the shape of a belt, generally awarded for martial arts.
  6. A collection of small bodies (such as asteroids) which orbit a star.
  7. One of certain girdles or zones on the surface of the planets Jupiter and Saturn, supposed to be of the nature of clouds.
  8. A band of armor along the sides of a warship, protecting the ship's vital spaces.
  9. A powerful blow, often made with a fist or heavy object.
  10. A quick drink of liquor.
  11. A geographical region known for a particular product, feature or demographic (Corn Belt, Bible Belt, Black Belt, Green Belt).
  12. The part of the strike zone at the height of the batter's waist.
  13. A device that holds and feeds cartridges into a belt-fed weapon.
  14. A vocal tone produced by singing with chest voice above the break (or passaggio), in a range typically sung in head voice.
  15. A mostly-continuous, often curvilinear structure expressed on the surface or in the subsurface of a terrestrial planet or other solid planemo, such as a mountain belt, a fold and thrust belt, or an ore belt.

verb

  1. To fasten a belt on; to encircle with a belt.
  2. To encircle; to surround.
  3. To invest (a person) with a belt as part of a formal ceremony such as knighthood.
  4. To hit with a belt.
  5. To hit someone or something, especially forcefully; to bash.

Etymology

From Middle English belt, from Old English belt (“belt, girdle”), from Proto-West Germanic *baltī̆, from Proto-Germanic *baltijaz (“girdle, belt”), from Latin balteus (“belt, sword-belt”), of Etruscan origin. Cognate with Scots belt (“belt”), Dutch belt, German Balz (“belt”), Danish bælte (“belt”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk belte (“belt”), Swedish bälte (“belt, cincture, girdle,…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.