Also 5–7 belte. [Common Teut.: OE. bęlt, cogn. with OHG. balz (? masc.), prob.:—OTeut. *baltjo-z, ad. L. balteus girdle. ON. has balti (neut.), perh. ad. L. balteum, common in med.L.]
1. A broadish, flat strip of leather or similar material, used to gird or encircle the person, confine some part of the dress, and to support various articles of use or ornament. Often described by the part of the body encircled (as waist-belt, shoulder-belt), or the article supported (as sword-belt, cartridge-belt).
a. 1000. Harl. Gloss., in Wr.-Wülcker, Voc., 192. Baltheum, cingulum, uel belt.
a. 1100. Cott. Gl., ibid. 359. Balteum gyrdel, oððe belt.
1375. Barbour, Bruce, X. 175. And ber Ane hatchat, that wer scharp to scher Undre hys belt.
c. 1420. Anturs Arth., xxix. Her belte was of blenket … bocult ful bene.
1597. Shaks., 2 Hen. IV., I. ii. 159. He that buckles him in my belt.
1676. Etheredge, Man of Mode, III. i. (1684), 31. Get your right leg firm on the ground, adjust your Belt.
1715. Lond. Gaz., No. 5376/3. A Cartouch Pouch, with a Shoulder belt, a Sword with a Waist-belt.
1874. Boutell, Arms & Arm., ii. 24. The sword … hung from a belt that passed over the shoulder.
b. esp. one worn as a mark of rank or distinction.
c. 1340. Gaw. & Gr. Knt., 162. Boþe þe barres of his belt & oþer blyþe stones.
1673. Cave, Prim. Chr., i. v. 110. An officer … threw away his belt, rather than obey that impious command.
1850. Thackeray, Pendennis, xlv. They fight each other for the champion’s belt and two hundred pounds a side.
c. fig.
1483. Cath. Angl., 27/1. A belte of lechery, cestus.
a. 1500. Songs Costume (1849), 60. Hir belt suld be of benignitie About her middill meit.
1605. Shaks., Macb., V. ii. 17. He cannot buckle his distemper’d cause Within the belt of Rule.
d. To hit below the belt (from the language of pugilists) is used fig. for ‘to act unfairly in any contest.’
1848. N. Y. Herald, 21 Dec., 2/1. It is quite another thing to strike your opponent when he is down, or to hit him below the belt.
2. transf. A broadish strip or stripe of any kind, or a continuous series of objects, encircling or girdling something: a. gen.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., s.v., The denomination belt is also applied to a sort of bandage in use among surgeons.
1788. J. C. Smyth, in Med. Commun., II. 184. The Zona, or Belt … seems to partake of the nature of a herpes.
1857. Emerson, Poems, 163. A belt of mirrors round a taper’s flame.
1875. Fortnum, Maiolica, v. 49. The body is decorated with two belts of grotesques.
b. esp. of the physical features of a landscape.
1810. Southey, Kehama, XXI. iii. A level belt of ice which bound … The waters of the sleeping Ocean round.
1834. Brit. Husb., I. 473. To plant a belt of Scotch firs around the inside of the circular drain.
1850. Prescott, Peru, II. 216. The American hunter, who endeavours to surround himself with a belt of wasted land, when overtaken by a conflagration.
c. spec. in Astr.
1664. Phil. Trans., I. 3. He hath remarked in the Belts of Jupiter the shaddows of his satellites.
1787. Bonnycastle, Astron., iii. 44. The body of Jupiter is surrounded by several parallel faint substances called Belts.
1830. Tennyson, Poems, 113. The burning belts, the mighty rings, The murmurous planets’ rolling choir.
3. Mech. A broad flat strap of leather, india-rubber, etc. passing round two wheels or shafts, and communicating motion from one to the other.
1795. Specif. Patent, No. 2034. The wood roller … has its motion by a pulley and belt.
1885. Engineer, 15 May (Advt.), Main Driving Belts … to transmit any required H. P.
4. A broadish flexible strap. (The idea of encircling or girdling here begins to disappear.)
1672. J. Venn, Mil. & Mar. Discip., iii. 8. He is to have a good Harquebuz, hanging on a belt into a swivel.
1753. Douglass, Brit. Settlem. N. Amer., 219. Our Indians formerly accounted by single Wampum, by Strings of Wampum, and by Belts of Wampum, in the same manner as the English account by the Denominations of Pence, Shillings, and Pounds.
1885. Nature, XXXI. 415. The cartridges [of a self-loading gun] are placed in a belt formed of two bands of tape, before they are placed in the box, and one end of this belt is placed in the gun.
5. A broad band or stripe characteristically distinguished from the surface it crosses; a tract or district long in proportion to its breadth.
1808. Wilford, Sacr. Isles, in Asiat. Res., VIII. 264. A range or belt about forty degrees broad, across the old continent.
1852. Conybeare & H., St. Paul (1862), I. vi. 159. Three belts of vegetation are successively passed through in ascending from the coast.
a. 1873. H. E. P. Spofford, Pilot’s Wife, in Casquet Lit., IV. 13/2. Bert’s boat might have been beyond its [the storm’s] belt.
1879. Tourgee, Fool’s Err., xlvi. 353. You have just come through the infected belt [of yellow fever].
b. Geog. Great and Little Belts, two channels between the Cattegat and the Baltic.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., s.v., The belts belong to the King of Denmark.
c. Arch. ‘A course of stones projecting from the naked, either moulded, plain, or fluted.’ Gwilt.
d. Naval Arch. A series of thick iron plates running along the water-line in armored vessels.
1885. Pall Mall Gaz., 21 Jan., 1/1. Naval officers will feel profoundly uncomfortable in taking an ironclad without a complete belt into action.
1885. Times, 10 April, 3/4. A short armoured belt … extending over less than half the length of the ship.
¶ Belt of pater-nosters or of Our Fathers:
In the Acts of the Council of Celchyth, an. 816 (Haddan & Stubbs, Councils & Eccl. Doc., III. 584), occurs the passage ‘et XXX diebus canonicis horis expleto synaxeos æt VII beltidum, Paternoster pro eo cantetur,’ of which the latter part ‘at the seven bell-hours let the Paternoster be sung for him,’ has given rise to one of the most grotesque blunders on record. The OE. words æt VII beltidum, ‘at the seven bell-hours,’ a gloss on ‘canonicis horis’ preceding, were taken by Spelman as Latin, and construed with the following word as a ‘paternoster of seven belts,’ which he explained as a rosary. Du Cange repeated the explanation, though questioning the existence of the rosary at that date. Johnson the Nonjuror (Eccl. Laws 1720) elaborately described ‘belts’ set with studs serving the purpose of a rosary. Scott (Suppl. to Chambers, 1753) suggested as a better rendering, ‘a paternoster to be repeated seven times.’ In all these there was an attempt to construe the passage, but in later ‘explanations’ the grammatical construction has been dismissed, and ‘VII beltidum, paternoster’ transmuted into ‘seven belts of paternosters,’ as in the following curious specimens of modern mythology:
1844. Lingard, Anglo-Sax. Ch. (1858), II. ix. 62. The frequent repetition of the Lord’s Prayer, technically called a belt of Pater-nosters. Note. A belt of Pater-nosters appears to correspond with a string of beads of later times…. It is probable that the belt contained fifty Pater-nosters.
1849. Rock, Ch. of Fathers, III. viii. 8. Seven belts of Our Fathers had to be said for the deceased.
6. Comb. and Attrib.: a. objective with vbl. sb. or pple., as belt-cutter, -maker, -splicing, -stretcher, -tightener; b. attrib., as belt-armo(u)r, -clasp, -coupling. Also belt-lacing, thongs for lacing together the ends of machine belts; † belt-money, ? a gratuity to soldiers; belt-pipe, a steam-pipe surrounding the cylinder of a steam-engine; belt-punch, an instrument for punching holes in belts; belt-saw (= band-saw; see BAND sb.2 III); belt-shifter, a contrivance for shifting a belt from pulley to pulley; belt-speeder, a contrivance consisting of two cone-pulleys carrying a belt, by which varying rates of motion are transmitted; † belt-stead, -stid, the place of the belt, the waist; belt-wise adv., in the manner of a belt.
1885. Pall Mall Gaz., 14 Jan., 11/1. Ships stripped of their *belt armour.
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., II. xv. 159. The *belt-ice at their foot was old and undisturbed.
1483. Cath. Angl., 27/1. A *belte maker, zonarius.
1679. Trial Wakeman, 44. Mr. Cott, a Beltmaker in the New Exchange.
1648. Petit. Eastern Ass., 18. Is not *Belt-money the dispendium of our possessions?
c. 1400. Destr. Troy, XIV. 5940. Slit hym down sleghly thurghe the slote euyn, Bode at the *belt stid, and the buerne deghit.
1879. Daily News, 6 Nov., 5/3. They were armoured on the *belt system, their thickest plates being confined to the neighbourhood of the water-line.
1667. E. Chamberlayne, St. Gt. Brit., I. III. iv. (1743), 173. They wear a scarlet Ribbon *belt-wise.
