Belly

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈbɛli/

Definitions

1. The front part of the human torso between the chest and pelvis, or the stomach area of any animal
2. The soft, rounded part of the body where food is digested and that can expand when full
3. The rounded, protruding central section of an object, such as the curved middle portion of a ship or bottle

Etymology: The body part that now sits at the front of us once meant something rather different: "bag" or "pouch." Old English "bielġ" denoted a bag, bulge, or leather container, and the sense of the human stomach came later, as the same swelling shape was applied to the body. The word's ancestors also meant "skin" or "hide," which hints at how close a leather sack and a rounded abdomen were in the minds of early speakers. The deeper root is the Proto-Indo-European "*bʰelǵʰ-," meaning "to swell, blow up." That sense survives in English through a set of doublets, words that split from the same source and went different ways: "bellows," the device that blows air, "bulge," "budge," and "blague." Each carries a trace of that original idea of puffing up or swelling. Across languages the same logic recurs. Ancient Greek "phûsa" meant both "bellows" and "bladder," and Macedonian "mev" covers both "abdomen" and "bellows," showing how naturally a swollen belly and an inflated bag were linked.

Synonyms: abdomen, stomach, tummy, gut, paunch

Antonyms: back, spine