bellied

1. 1
   adjectivein compounds

   Having a belly of the kind named by the first part of a compound, as in big-bellied or round-bellied.

   A big-bellied man in a leather vest stood guarding the door.

   The potter is known for her full-bellied jars with narrow necks.

   Note

   The hyphenated form, where the first word sets the size or shape: big-bellied, round-bellied, full-bellied. It describes things as readily as people, because a belly can be any part that swells outward, so a vase, a jar or the curved blade of a knife can be round-bellied or full-bellied just as a biker can be big-bellied. The compound is not compared.

2. 2
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of belly.

   The curtains bellied inward as the storm hit the open window.

   The tourists had bellied up to the railing to watch the whales.

   Note

   One spelling covers both the simple past (the curtains bellied inward) and the participle after have (they had bellied up to the railing). The y of belly turns to i before -ed, as in carried and buried. With up, the verb takes its body-forward sense: to belly up to a bar or a railing is to press in close against it.

3. 3
   adjective

   Having a belly that is large or that sticks out noticeably.

   A bellied, red-faced chef came out of the kitchen to greet the guests.

   The portrait shows a bellied merchant in a velvet coat and gold rings.

   Similarpaunchy, potbellied, portly, stout

4. 4
   adjective

   Swollen or rounded outward, bulging or billowing.

   Rows of bellied wine barrels lined the cellar walls.

   The kite's bellied canvas strained against the wind.

   Similarswollen, rounded

   Oppositeflat, concave

   Note

   Where bellying pictures a sail filling as you watch, bellied describes the rounded shape once it is there, which is why it suits things that stay swollen: the wineskins George Meredith's harvesters string "plump" in 1883, or the "great bellied chimneys" quivering in smoky heat in Alexander Smith's foundry town of 1857.

5. 5
   adjectivefiguratively

   Puffed up beyond its true size; overblown or exaggerated.

   Similarinflated, overblown, exaggerated, bloated

   Note

   The swelling of the bulging sense turned into a judgment: praise blown up past its true size, full of air rather than substance. Beaumont and Fletcher's Philaster (c. 1610) has decent men who would blush to "back such bellied commendations." It is a figure for flattery and inflated talk rather than for objects.

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