different between belly vs bellows

English

Etymology

From Middle English bely, beli, bali, below, belew, balyw, from Old English belg, bælg, bæli? (“bag, pouch, bulge”), from Proto-Germanic *balgiz (“skin, hide, bellows, bag”), from Proto-Indo-European *b?el??- (“to swell, blow up”). Cognate with Dutch balg, German Balg. Doublet of blague. See also bellows.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?b?li/
• Rhymes: -?li
• Hyphenation: bel?ly

Noun

belly (plural bellies)

1. The abdomen, especially a fat one.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Dunglison to this entry?)

2. The stomach.

3. The womb.
4. The lower fuselage of an airplane.
   • 1994, Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, Abacus 2010, p. 454:

     There was no heat, and we shivered in the belly of the plane.

5. The part of anything which resembles the human belly in protuberance or in cavity; the innermost part.
6. (architecture) The hollow part of a curved or bent timber, the convex part of which is the back.

Usage notes

• Formerly, all the splanchnic or visceral cavities were called bellies: the lower belly being the abdomen; the middle belly, the thorax; and the upper belly, the head.

Derived terms

Descendants

• Sranan Tongo: bere

Translations

See also

• abdomen
• bouk
• have eyes bigger than one's belly
• stomach
• tummy

Verb

belly (third-person singular simple present bellies, present participle bellying, simple past and past participle bellied)

1. To position one’s belly; to move on one’s belly.
   • 1903, Jack London, The Call of the Wild, Chapter 7,^[1]

     Bellying forward to the edge of the clearing, he found Hans, lying on his face, feathered with arrows like a porcupine.

2. (intransitive) To swell and become protuberant; to bulge or billow.
   • 1890, Rudyard Kipling, “The Rhyme of the Three Captains,”^[2]

     The halliards twanged against the tops, the bunting bellied broad,

   • 1914, Theodore Roosevelt, Through the Brazilian Wilderness, Chapter 6,^[3]

     There were trees whose trunks bellied into huge swellings.

   • 1917 rev. 1925 Ezra Pound, "Canto I"

     winds from sternward

     Bore us onward with bellying canvas ...

   • 1930, Otis Adelbert Kline, The Prince of Peril, serialized in Argosy, Chapter 1,^[4]

     The building stood on a circular foundation, and its walls, instead of mounting skyward in a straight line, bellied outward and then curved in again at the top.

3. (transitive) To cause to swell out; to fill.
   • c. 1601, William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, Act II, Scene 2,^[5]

     Your breath of full consent bellied his sails;

   • 1920, Sinclair Lewis, Main Street, Chapter I, I,^[6]

     A breeze which had crossed a thousand miles of wheat-lands bellied her taffeta skirt in a line so graceful, so full of animation and moving beauty, that the heart of a chance watcher on the lower road tightened to wistfulness over her quality of suspended freedom.

Derived terms

• bellying
• belly out
• belly up

English

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /?b?l.o?z/
• (US, dialectal) IPA^(key): /?b?l.?s/
• (UK) IPA^(key): /?b?l.??z/
• Rhymes: -?l??z

Etymology 1

From Middle English belwes, plural of belu, belwe, a northern form of beli, from Old English belg, cf. bæl?, from Proto-Germanic *balgiz. Compare German Balg. See also belly.

Noun

bellows (plural bellows)

1. A device for delivering pressurized air in a controlled quantity to a controlled location. At its most simple terms a bellows is a container which is deformable in such a way as to alter its volume which has an outlet or outlets where one wishes to blow air.
2. Any flexible container or enclosure, as one used to cover a moving joint.
3. (informal or archaic) The lungs.
4. (photography) Flexible, light-tight enclosures connecting the lensboard and the camera back.
5. (figuratively) That which fans the fire of hatred, jealousy, etc.

Usage notes

• "Bellows" is used with both singular and plural verbs. One can even find "A bellows is/was".

Related terms

• bellowser
• belly
• blow

Translations

Verb

bellows (third-person singular simple present bellowses, present participle bellowsing, simple past and past participle bellowsed)

1. (intransitive, transitive) To operate a bellows; to direct air at (something) using a bellows.
   • 1861, Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter ,^[1]

     […] I was recommended to the place as a man who could give another man as good as he brought, and I took it. It’s easier than bellowsing and hammering.

   • 1915, John G. Neihardt, The Song of Hugh Glass, New York: Macmillan, Part 2, p. 34,^[2]

     So bellowsed, all the kindled soul of Hugh

     Became a still white hell of brooding ire,

     And through his veins regenerating fire

     Ran, driving out the lethargy of pain.

   • 1920, Arthur Guiterman, “Thunder-Storm” in Ballads of Old New York, New York: Harper & Bros., p. 49,^[3]

     The smiths of the heavens are mending the weather;

     Their hammers are beating the fragments together.

     The cumulus mountains with nebulous gorges

     Are dazzled with flame of the wind-bellowsed forges;

   • 1966, Anthony Burgess, Tremor of Intent: An Eschatological Spy Novel, New York: Norton, Part 3, Chapter 6, p. 173,^[4]

     He almost let the cigar go out. ‘Good God, no. We’re both exiles, aren’t we?’ He bellowsed the end red again and continued, delicate as a musician, his scoring.

   • 1999, Ferdinand Mount, Jem (and Sam), New York: Carroll & Graf, Chapter 10, p. 397,^[5]

     This is a capricious devil, the furnace, though I say it myself, and it wants regular bellowsing.

2. (intransitive, figuratively) To expand and contract like a bellows.
   • 1904, A. R. Sennett, Across the Great Saint Bernard: The Modes of Nature and the Manners of Man, London: Bemrose & Sons, Chapter 6, p. 389,^[6]

     […] [the dogs] sprang up, and, with a grand spraying of the crisp snow as they fleetly clambered up the steep side, they were with us in an incredibly short time, with pink tongues protruding, sides bellowsing, and sterns wagging.

   • 1933, John Steinbeck, The Red Pony, New York: Viking, 1945, Chapter 1, p. 48,^[7]

     The pony still lay on his side and the wound in his throat bellowsed in and out.

   • 1978, Stephen King, The Stand, New York: Random House, 2012, Chapter 25, p. 196,^[8]

     A sick-looking dog sat in the middle of the road, head down, sides bellowsing, white foam dripping from its muzzle to the heat-shimmering pavement.

   • 1998, Loren D. Estleman, Jitterbug, New York: Tom Doherty Associates, Chapter Six, p. 53,^[9]

     The old man laughed without making a sound. His chest bellowsed and he opened his mouth to display a horseshoe of gold molars.

3. (transitive) To fold up like a bellows; to accordion.
   • 1916, Roger Pocock, Horses, London: John Murray, 2nd edition, 1917, Chapter 6, pp. 170-171,^[10]

     Without being tight […] the boot leg should fit close. The ankle should be supple as a stocking, and “bellowsed” to make sure of suppleness.

   • 1986, Will D. Campbell, Forty Acres and a Goat, Atlanta: Peachtree, Chapter 9, p. 185,^[11]

     […] the chairman of the gathered scholars […] [shushed] the black waiters preparing to feed us a hefty lunch behind the bellowsed dividing wall with the impatient yell, “You’re disturbing our meeting,” while we discussed their plight on our side of the wall.

   • 1994, Timothy West, I’m Here I Think, Where Are You? Letters from a touring actor, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1995, p. 139,^[12]

     [The bus] rolled swiftly down the hill and bellowsed five parked cars […]

Etymology 2

See bellow

Noun

bellows

1. plural of bellow

Verb

bellows

1. Third-person singular simple present indicative form of bellow

Anagrams

• Boswell