Belly

How to spell belly

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce belly

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does belly mean?

1. nounThe front part of the human or animal body containing the stomach and other digestive organs.
2. verbTo swell out or bulge, especially when filled with wind or pressure.

Belly in a sentence

• noun

  The rich meal left him with an aching, swollen belly.

• verb

  The sails began to belly as the wind picked up across the bay.

• noun

  The cat rolled over and exposed its soft white belly.

• verb

  The old curtains belly inward whenever someone opened the front door.

Where does belly come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Belly comes from the Old English word belg (also spelled bælig), which meant a bag, pouch, or leather sack rather than a part of the body. That word traces back to a Germanic root meaning 'to swell' or 'to be inflated', which is why the rounded, swelling shape of a sack and the rounded human midsection came to share a name. By the Middle English period the sense had narrowed to the stomach and abdomen, the bag-like cavity of the body. The same swelling root survives in the close relatives 'bellows', the device that puffs up with air, and arguably 'bag' itself. The double l and the -y ending are simply how Middle English settled the spelling, and the word has stayed short and Anglo-Saxon plain ever since.

How the word is built

• belly (from Old English belg: bag, pouch); no affixes