belt
Definitions
General English
Agriculture
- verb to clean out a sheep’s fleece with shears
Aviation
- noun a long, relatively narrow area
- noun a loop of strong material connecting two pulleys or wheels, one driving the other
Cars & Driving
- noun a loop of strong material passed round two or more pulleys and transmitting drive from one to the other, such as a fan belt or timing belt
- noun a reinforcing layer or layers of steel or nylon strands in the carcass of a radial ply tyre
Construction
- A flexible continuous loop that conveys power (or materials) between the pulleys or rollers around which it passes.
- A course of brick or stone that protrudes from a wall of similar material and is usually positioned in line with the windowsills.
Military
- noun a strip of leather, webbing or other material, worn around the waist and used to support a person’s trousers or to carry equipment-pouches.
- noun ammunition which is linked together by metal clips or fastened by loops to a strip of canvas, in order to be fired by a machine-gun
Sports
- noun a belt awarded to a sports competitor, especially in boxing or the martial arts, as a trophy or a sign of having attained a particular grade
- noun somebody awarded a particular belt for an achievement, usually in boxing or one of the martial arts
Origin & History of “belt”
Old
English belt and related Germanic forms
such as Swedish
bälte point to a
source in Germanic *
baltjaz,
which was borrowed
from Latin
balteus, possibly a
word of Etruscan
origin. The verbal idiom
belt up ‘be quiet’ appears to
date from
just before world War II.
