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belly

noun · verb

Simple meaning

To swell and become protuberant.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

behlee

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈbɛli

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. Stomach (an organ in animals that stores food in the process of digestion)

  2. anatomycountable

    Uterus (a reproductive organ of therian mammals in which the young are conceived and develop until birth)

  3. The abdomen (especially a fat one).

  4. A protruding abdomen

  5. The part of anything which resembles (either closely or abstractly) the human belly in protuberance or in concavity; often, the fundus (innermost part).

  6. The main curved portion of a knife blade.

verb

  1. intransitive

    To swell and become protuberant; to bulge or billow.

  2. Swell out or bulge out

  3. transitive

    To cause to swell out; to fill.

  4. To position one's belly; to move on one's belly.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B2 · Upper Intermediate
Frequency
Common
Typical Use
Everyday English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Stomach (an organ in animals that stores food in the process of digestion)

Used this way, belly is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use belly

  • “The cat rolled onto its belly, inviting scratches.”

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

belly buttonbelly laughwhite bellybig bellyposterior bellymuscle bellylower bellyfull belly

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • belly dancernounCompound term

    A woman who performs a solo belly dance.

  • belly dancingnounCompound term

    A Middle Eastern dance in which the dancer makes sensuous movements of the hips and abdomen.

  • belly-flopverbCompound term

    Dive so that one hits the water with one's belly.

  • belly floppernounCompound term

    A dive in which the abdomen bears the main force of impact with the water.

  • belly-landverbCompound term

    Land on the underside without the landing gear.

  • belly laughnounCompound term

    A burst of deep loud hearty laughter.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: stomach (an organ in animals that stores food in the process of digestion)

paunch

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.