1The front part of the human trunk below the ribs, containing the stomach and bowels.

1. 1.1 The stomach, especially as representing the body's need for food.
   they'll fight all the better on empty bellies

   Example sentencesExamples

   • With a warm belly full of food, the fire was extinguished and we were back on our way, often returning after midnight.
   • Pride doesn't pay the bills, keep the wolf from the door or put food in bellies.
   • It's bad enough living this way, feeding your kids low-cost food that fills their bellies but doesn't fulfill the requirements of good nutrition.
   • Food was scarce, and the infant Ono made up a game of visualising sumptuous feasts to keep their minds off their empty bellies.
   • She claims to know what I need, and perhaps she does, because I need so little - the sun to rise; food in my belly.
   • Plus, having food in your belly can lower your chances of upset stomach, which vitamins can sometimes cause.
   • You know that they will come with empty bellies but you have absolutely no clue what to feed these ravenous guests.
   • The next day I finally got food in my belly and I kissed the one that fed me with all my heart
   • She had a home, plenty of clothes and food in her belly.
   • But after this, he thought of what a sensational delight it would be to feel tears running backwards through himself and into his empty belly.
   • Then she decided that I needed some solid food in my belly, so she made me sit at the dining room table and forbade me from helping her while she made a hearty dinner for us.
   • It won't put medicine in decrepit hospitals or food in empty bellies.
   • Hunger also spurs millions of children to drop out of school in order to scavenge for food, and those who manage to attend school despite empty bellies find it excruciatingly hard to concentrate.
   • In the long term, we want our agricultural policies to focus on producing food to fill our bellies and not on producing crops to service our debts.
   • A promise is neither food in your belly nor actual value in your bank account.
   • You have a decent place to live, electricity, food in your belly, clean water to drink, clothes on your back, etc.
   • In an era when table diplomacy has become an important element of social communication and business activity, people are often at risk of taking food beyond their bellies ' capacity.
   • I want to be part of the generation that says no to extreme poverty, says no to the idea that children can die for the lack of a cheap immunization or food in his belly.
   • We stood, our bellies content and our bodies consumed with fatigue.
   • Taking these drugs is quite a complicated procedure, which often involves taking a combination of 10 or more drugs at the correct time of day, and not on a belly starved of food or water.
   • What we have done is to feed them enough to fill their bellies of the right foods, giving them no more than they need at one time, but doing it several times a day.

   Synonyms

   stomach, abdomen, paunch, middle, midriff, girth
2. 1.2 The underside of a bird or other animal.
   Example sentencesExamples

   • Juncos, the dark gray birds with the white bellies, are also sparrows, but they are so distinctive that you don't need a description from me.
   • The ventral or under side of the animal including the belly, is lighter in color than the dorsal or top side. They can have prominent hip stripes.
   • Once, grasses in the Big Bend region of Texas were said to have been tall enough to brush the bellies of horses.
   • Not only were these people swimming with about two dozen manatees, but they were also rubbing the manatees' bellies and backs.
   • Laying on their bellies, horses concealed by brush, James, Adam and Hoss waited, scarcely breathing.
   • Photographs of the belly and chest were taken while the dog was standing on its hind feet and two people held the front feet displaying the armpits.
   • Our bird had a brown belly, however, and I turned the page to Common Yellowthroat.
   • But the wily Ulysses had tied his men under the bellies of the animals.
   • Rather than flapping the wings from back to belly, as other birds do, the partridges flap from head to tail.
   • The Silver-eyes, like the ones I saw in Australia, have gray backs and gray bellies.
   • With quickness and agility, the boy went under the belly of the horse, dodging big hooves and the swishing head of the beast.
   • The blinded Cyclops at the cave exit feels the emerging animals, under whose bellies Odysseus and his followers are clinging.
   • The animal rolled onto his belly and slowly sat up from the position.
   • Gray Jays are medium-sized, gray birds with lighter bellies.
   • The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun beating its legs trying to turn itself over but it can't, not without your help, but you're not helping.
   • The dish is whale, minke whale, a little strip of raw flesh from the belly of an animal protected from commercial hunting by a moratorium that has survived 15 years.
   • And you have to be certain that you don't get impatient and smack the horse in the belly and ruin everything it was understanding up to that point.
   • His belly and flanks are white, and his rump is black.
   • They are light underneath, with finely streaked chests and bellies.
   • The birds were spectacular with a black belly with large white spots on the side and a deep chestnut collar and a white cheekpatch.
3. 1.3 A cut of pork from the underside between the legs.
   Example sentencesExamples

   • Living on a staple diet of belly pork, collar bacon, and beef dripping, her arteries should have been as choked as the M1 on a Friday evening.
   • The meat was apparently very tasty, but very fatty, which one would expect belly pork to be.
   • Arrange the cut fillet around the pork belly and drizzle with the sauce.
   • There's lush slabs of slow-roasted pork belly and meltingly tender duck legs, a piquant escabeche of red mullet and a truly remarkable lemon tart to finish.
   • This morning, fairly confident that I could maintain a steady supply of smoke at a fairly constant temperature I hung the 2 sides of belly pork in to be smoked for 24 hours.
   • ‘We use those parts of the pig that are the least valued: the soft belly pork, the lungs, head, ears, tongue and kidneys ’, body parts which have no place in the average steak and roast regime.
   • Reheat pork belly in simmering water for ten minutes and cut open bag.
   • Choucroute, a statement of Alsatian identity on a plate, is a sturdy dish of sauerkraut laden with cured and boiled meats: smoked sausage, ham knuckles, belly pork.
   • Streaky bacon is made from belly of pork, while back comes from the leaner loin - a more expensive pork joint, so accordingly more expensive as bacon.
   • Tuna confit with pork belly and béarnaise was another new notion that did not fail.
   • He has brought a piece of Village Farm's belly pork and the head chef wants him to prepare and cook a signature menu for the restaurant.
   • They contain lots of seasonings, and the ingredients are mostly high in saturated fat, for example, pork belly, fatty meat or instant noodles.
   • Divide pork belly and sauce evenly between four vacuum-packed bags.
   • Octopus and squid ceviche, salt cod croquettes and pot-roast belly pork and cheeks were all good enough to go back for.
   • In China I had to be dragged away from Dong Po pork, a dish of fatty belly pork cooked for four hours with rice wine, ginger, sugar and soy sauce until it is translucent.
   • Swap the chicken for a slab of belly pork, again shredding the meltingly tender meat back into the rice to serve.
   • When my son Joe came for dinner on a cold Sunday evening, I cooked some diced rump steak slowly with slivers of belly pork and winter vegetables, moistened with dry vermouth and canned tomatoes.
   • The food is both inventive and hearty - braised belly pork with black pudding, anyone?
   • Add the belly pork, 150 ml soy sauce, the sherry, the halved red chilli, two cloves of garlic, two thirds of the sliced root ginger and the star anise.
   • A commendably high number of dishes come with gravy, and other choices include venison pie, pork belly and mash, fish and chips or Cajun chicken.
4. 1.4 A pig's belly as food, especially as a traded commodity.
   Example sentencesExamples

   • The owners treated their serfs as if they were a commodity like pork bellies.
   • Her husband, Harvey, is a commodity broker, but he would sooner die, she insists on his behalf, than trade pork bellies.
   • We visited the corn exchange to see the opening of the morning's trade in agricultural commodities as diverse as soya bean, cotton, pork bellies, wheat and oilseeds.
   • You can buy pork bellies the same way you buy stocks.
   • After all, pork bellies are a commodity, and they make the Farm Report every day.
   • It could be tied to commodities like a bushel of wheat, or a pork belly.
5. 1.5 The rounded underside of a ship or aircraft.
   Example sentencesExamples

   • But, before we can fully digest our thoughts, a man pushes us down a set of stairs into the belly of the ship.
   • The belly of the ship rumbled as the Interstellar Drive Unit ignited.
   • She turned to see her father wave to her and then ascend the ramp into the belly of the ship.
   • NASA officials say they don't think a piece of tile that hit Discovery's belly during liftoff is a serious matter.
   • From deep within the belly of the ship, a low whirring sound began, steadily gaining pitch and velocity.
   • At the beginning of the film, we see Dracula slumbering in his coffin in the belly of a ship on its way to England.
   • Often it arrived in the form of ballast in the bellies of ships, which ensured that everything apart from the bilge water could be traded to maximise the trip.
   • Astronauts will try to pull out or cut off two fabric strips that are sticking out from the belly of the shuttle.
   • On the other hand, the airframe damage to the aircraft belly was considerable.
   • Most of the incoming freight arrives at Heathrow in the belly of wide-bodied passenger aircraft and is then sent onwards to Scotland via road, rail and sea.
   • Planes also have two red rotating beacons - one on the roof and one on the belly of the aircraft.
   • They continued walking, taking every ramp they could find that might take them further into the belly of the ship.
   • The prisoners milled around the belly of the ship as they tried to find a place to call home.
   • They went to the belly of the ship, further than Ramona had ever ventured, and found a door.
   • And so it was that the missile, diving like a kingfisher, struck the ship in the belly.
   • Engines began to hum deep in the belly of the ship, but Boertousce's grin only widened, the lips peeling back as if mocking his efforts.
   • Styles had reached the belly of the ship where two men were hard at work pumping the bilge.
   • NASA is studying videotape that shows a piece of tile falling off the shuttle's belly during this morning's launch.
   • Matthew followed the others to the stairwell that led down into the belly of the ship.
   • The hook-up is made by directions given to the receiver aircraft through a system of lights located on the belly of the aircraft just behind the nose gear.
   • So now the aircraft's on its belly sliding down the runway.
   • Bull came up from the belly of the ship and stood on the deck.

   Synonyms

   undercarriage, underbelly, underside, undersurface, underneath, underpart, lower side, bottom
6. 1.6 The top surface of an instrument of the violin family, across which the strings are placed.
   Example sentencesExamples

   • The soundpost is a cylindrical piece of wood inside the violin, viola or cello body that joins the belly to the underside of the instrument, and is located below one foot of the bridge.
   • The bridge must be made of the proper grade of maple, properly cut with regard to the grain of the wood, and perfectly fitted to the belly of the cello.
   • The lira type had a broad pear shape, with a wooden belly and usually three strings.
   • The bridge transmits the strings' vibrations to the violin belly, or soundboard, which amplifies the sound.
   • On the cello the distance from the top nut to the top edge of the belly is 28 cm, from the edge of the belly to the bridge 40 - 42 cm.

1Swell or cause to swell.

2belly up toNorth American informal no object Move or sit close to (a bar or table)