belting

Pluralbeltings

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A beating given to someone with a belt, usually as punishment.

   Old schoolyard stories often ended with some poor child earning a belting at home.

   She still remembered the belting she received for skipping class.

   Similarbeating, thrashing, whipping, hiding

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of belt.

   The singer was belting the chorus with everything she had.

   Rain kept belting against the windows all night long.

   Note

   The -ing form of a verb with unusually scattered meanings: fastening a belt on, hitting with one, singing loud and strong, or gulping a drink. As a gerund it names the action itself. The nouns branch from these uses: the vocal technique is the singing use settled into a noun, and the punishment is the hitting one.

3. 3
   nounfigurativelycountable

   A thorough defeat in which one side is soundly beaten.

   The champion handed the challenger a belting over twelve one-sided rounds.

   Their campaign never recovered from the belting they suffered in the opening debate.

   Similarthrashing, hammering, drubbing, trouncing, beating

   Note

   The sporting extension of the punishment with a belt: a defeat pictured as a beating. Unlike many abstract nouns it counts freely and takes a plural. Matt Johnston, writing in the Herald Sun in 2009, looks back on AFL finals as "a series of one-sided beltings." One-sided is its natural companion, and thrashing is its closest synonym.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   A singing technique that carries the chest voice above the vocal break into the higher notes usually sung in head voice.

   The score calls for sustained belting throughout the second act.

   Audiences loved her belting on the show's biggest number.

   Note

   Musical theater claims this sense above any other stage. Gillyanne Kayes, in Singing and the Actor (2015), notes that it traditionally went to the funny, quirky or feisty female roles. It is uncountable: a singer's belting is admired or strained, never "a belting," which would be the punishment. The noun names the technique, while the verb belt, to sing loud and strong, names the act.

5. 5
   noununcountable

   The connected set of belts that runs inside a machine, such as a conveyor or other mechanism.

   A jammed pulley brought the entire belting to a sudden halt.

   Maintenance crews realigned the belting before restarting the production line.

6. 6
   noununcountable

   The tough material from which belts for machinery are manufactured.

   The warehouse stocked heavy canvas belting in several widths.

   Reinforced belting holds up better under constant friction and heat.

7. 7
   adjectivedialectalNorthern English

   Excellent or first-rate; in some dialects also used as an adverb meaning 'very.'

   She cooked a belting dinner for the whole family.

   The weather on the coast was belting all week.

   Similarbrilliant, cracking, great, excellent

   Oppositeawful, terrible

   Note

   A Northern English word of hearty praise, best kept to the voices it belongs to. Before a noun it is an ordinary adjective (a belting time). Placed before another adjective it becomes an intensifier, so belting good food is simply very good food. It has no comparative or superlative: a meal is belting or it is not, never more belting.

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