Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a prostitute.

1909

Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues (rev. edn).

2. a boisterous, energetic singer [belt it out ].

1953		Time 20 July 90: She became a belter. She found herself ‘living’ every song she sang.
1960		P. Rabe Murder Me for Nickels (2004) 140: First thing, a drum came on [...] then a belter who shattered the glasswool off the ceiling.
1999		Indep. on Sun. Real Life 20 June 3: Some Sixties belter who hasn’t had a full-blown major hit.

3. a (heavy) drinker.

1977

Philadelphia Inquirer (PA) 6 Feb. 19/1: The Irish belters [...] who belly up at the watering hole [...] never thought they would see old Shoosh Novelli banging down a shot and a beer again. The old man has the Big One. The doctors found it in his jawbone.

4. an admirable, exciting, or exceptional person [northern dial. belter, a heavy blow or series of blows].

1980		J. McClure Spike Island (1981) 333: Our boxer dog [...] was a belter [...] he’d be snarlin’ and they all backed off.
1983		(con. 1950s) D. Nobbs Second From Last in the Sack Race 307: She’s a right belter now, is Lorna Arrow.
1998		K. Sampson Awaydays 25: You, my derlin, are a liddle fucken belter. Yeah fucken gerjuss.
2003		www.thepantsman.com 🌐 Fuck me, you’re in a foreign country with the focus on bending over belters, yet none of you will fork out a single peso to guarantee a bit of Mexican minge.
2012		(con. 1980s) I. Welsh Skagboys 24: Heh-low . . . ride alert, ride alert . . . the daughter has turned oot a right wee fuckin belter!

5. something exceptional, exciting, amusing etc.

1981		J. Sullivan ‘Christmas Crackers’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] earl: Hullo Del Boy. Nice Christmas? del: A belter.
1999		Indep. on Sun. Culture 11 July 1: They’re re-telling a belter about some tasty bank job.
2000		Guardian Rev. 3 Nov. 17: Purely Belter means more brilliant than ‘cushdy’ or ‘mint’; it means, as it were, doubleplusgood.
2004		C. Brookmyre Be My Enemy 114: It [i.e. a joke] was a sheer belter because it illustrated that [...] Rory could also be a blundering numpty.

6. a loud, emotional and melodramatic song [belt it out ].

2000

Guardian Rev. 5 May 20: There’s a very faint breeze of 50s pop cheesiness about such belters as How Can I Be Sure?

7. in phr. a belter of, an extreme or exceptional example.

2012

(con. 1980s) I. Welsh Skagboys 273: Ah’ve goat a belter ah a hard-on n she looks as sexy and sleazy as fuck.

a beating.

1821–5		‘Bill Truck’ Man o’ War’s Man (1843) 229: I’ll not forget the great sound belting I catched.
1895		Mirror of Life 30 Mar. 10/2: We never saw a pugilist smile after he had received a belting but it made us feel uncomfortable. Perkins and Wiltshire both laughed.
1899–1901		(?) H. Lawson ‘Getting Back on Dave Regan’ in Roderick (1972) 368: If I ketch him I’ll give him a beltin’ for it.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 14 Feb. 4/5: The latter came out gaily [...] and gave Kubla a terrific belting, and drove the sick, battered fragments of him to seek shelter in a storm.
1913		J. London Valley of the Moon (1914) 235: Cal’s mother wouldn’t let ’m go swimmin’, an’ whenever she suspected she always licked his hair [...] If it tasted salty, he got a beltin’.
1930		J.T. Farrell ‘Curbstone Philosophy’ in Short Stories (1937) 221: Some day you’re gonna get the beltin’ you got comin’.
1938		D. Runyon ‘The Lemon Drop Kid’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 380: One of the attendants in the orphans’ asylum [...] gives him a good belting.
1949		L. Glassop Lucky Palmer 21: If me old man catches me with this much dough I’ll get a belting.
1956		‘Charles Raven’ Und. Nights 43: He gave him a private belting.
1963		C. Rohan Down by the Dockside 215: Do you want a belting?
1965		E. Bond Saved Scene viii: Yer need a bloody good beltin’.
1967		J. Wynnum I’m a Jack, All Right 21: Can’t afford [...] getting a belting into the bargain.
1986		F. Taylor Auf Wiedersehen Pet Two 182: Would I lie to my big sister [...] knowing the belting she’d give me when she found out?
1990		in D. Campbell That Was Business, This Is Personal 15: I got a thorough belting for escaping from the police.

excellent, very good of its type.

1956		J. Curtis Look Long Upon a Monkey 33: You’d have a belting time too, in a cushy country like that.
1964		Jackie 19 Dec. n.p.: I always thought it was a belting idea [KH].
1982		J. Sullivan ‘It Never Rains’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] Come to think of it, it’s a belting idea!

a fight.

1968

G. Slatter Pagan Game (1969) 162: A belt-up in the ruck, a bunch of five, fair enough.

at full speed.

1984		Partridge DSUE (8th edn).
2004		B. Parris Making of a Legionnaire 11: [W]e ran like fuck towards our lines [...] both at full belt now, shouting and screaming loudly .

1. to rain very hard.

1984

Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 69/1: late C.19–20.

2. (N.Z.) to drink quickly.

2003

McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl.

to eat heartily.

1968

J. Barlow Burden of Proof 91: Matthews sat with Binney [...] belting into steak, chips and salad.

to masturbate.

1977

(con. 1949) J.G. Dunne True Confessions (1979) 91: He was belting it, I bet. And saying ooohhh and aaahhh on the telephone.

to sing loudly and enthusiastically; thus belting n. and adj.

1955		J. Blake letter 26 June Joint (1972) 63: I notice the effect of Sammy Davis, Jr., who saves his too belting delivery by a sly oblique junkie-type humor.
1963		G. Lambert Inside Daisy Clover (1966) 25: She was singing, and by the last verse fairly belting it out.
1969		N. Cohn Awopbop. (1970) 80: He just stomped his foot, stood his ground and belted.
1969		J. Susann Love Machine 186: She belts out a song better than Garland.
1977		J.G. Dunne True Confessions (1979) 14: ‘And blessed is the fruit of thy womb . . . .’ (This is where Moira really belts it), ‘. . . Jay-sus.’.

(N.Z.) to get very drunk.

2003

McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl.

see under batter n.¹

(Aus.) to exhaust oneself.

1902

‘Dads Wayback’ in Sun. Times (Sydney) 13 July 1/4: ‘[M]ore nor twenty young coves must er belted their heart out cuttin’ fer him’.

see under hog n.

1. (Aus.) to create, to gain, to make.

1910

Bulletin (Sydney) 27 Oct. 10/3: [H]e considers his method of belting out a living as honorable as that of Judkins, Dill Macky or any other strife-creator.

2. (orig. Aus., also belt) to sing lustily; to broadcast or proclaim noisily.

1914		Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Sept. 34/2: At more than half the patriotic concerts in Australia the National Anthem, ‘Britons Never Shall be Slaves,’ ‘Advance Australia Fair,’ and so on, are belted out of pianos made at Blooduntgutsburg, while the audience waves its imported and anti-British hat enthusiastically.
1953		Sat. Rev. (US) 12 Dec. 55: Standing there in the dim haze [...] belting out the sophisticated sweetness of Porter’s ‘Get Out of Town’.
1962		F. Norman Guntz 138: All of which [i.e. TV channels] never leave off belting out programmes round the clock.
1978		F. Norman Dead Butler Caper 101: She was up on stage beltin’ out the latest ’it, an Al Jolson number.
1981		(con. 1966) P. Conroy Lords of Discipline 28: I’m listening to fat broads belting out dago songs.
1999		N. Cohn Yes We have No 280: The Tom Jones wannabe in the karaoke pub [...] is belting out ‘Delilah’.
2001		C. McPherson Port Authority 1: They’d have to belt something easy out like Anarchy in the UK.
2013		N. Knight ‘Not Even a Mouse’ in ThugLit Nov.-Dec. [ebook] For weeks, he’d belted that they were broke.
2022		J. Sweeney ‘Bad Days in Bakhmut’ in JohnSweeneyRoars 7 Sept. 🌐 The three of us belting out ‘This’ll be the day that I die’.
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 53: I swoop by the Losers Club and gas on Mr Cornuto. He’s belting show tunes.

3. (US) to eat heartily.

1938

D. Runyon ‘The Big Umbrella’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 557: Jonas thinks he really is belting out these porter-houses.

4. (US) to knock down, to destroy.

1942		Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Sl.
1947		B. Schulberg Harder They Fall (1971) 89: An old master chased around the ring, easy to hit [...] finally belted out.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 26/1: Belt out. 1. To arrest; to convict; to commit to prison. 2. To knock unconscious.
1967		J. Breslin World of Jimmy Breslin (1968) 35: Marvin the Torch’s favor job [...] had also belted out most of a million-and-a-half-dollar amusement park.
1972		C. Bukowski Erections, Ejaculations etc. 306: If you come on me a THIRD TIME, I promise you this – I’m going to belt you out.

5. (US) to murder.

1964		J. Breslin [synd. col.] 11 Mar. These kids from Brooklyn who belted people out casually and were called Murder Inc.
1970		R. Sylvester Guilty Bystander 242: I belted them both out [...] I found one and then I tracked down the other [HDAS].

6. see sense 1 above.

(orig. US) to drink heavily.

1938		D. Runyon ‘Lillian’ Runyon on Broadway (1954) 281: I get to belting that old black bottle around.
1961		Valley Times (N. Hollywood, CA) 3 Mar. 20/3: Unlike many of his fellow senators who belted the bottle in private and voted for temperance in public.
1972		Tennessean (Nashville, TN) 12 Nov. 10E/7: Until he gave up the grape [...] Tommy [Dorsey] belted the bottle as well as he belted his trombone.

to drink heavily.

1938		D. Runyon ‘Social Error’ Runyon on Broadway (1954) 455: Handsome Jack takes to belting the old grape.
c.1943		‘Bill O. Lading’ You Chirped a Chinful!! n.p.: Belting the Grape; Elbow calishthenics or imbibing joy-water.
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS.
1963		Valley Times (N. Hollywood, CA) 24 Jan. 36/3: Actors who have no great desire or reputation for belting the grape.
1975		Longview News-Jrnl (TX) 3 Dec. 4/4: He blamed it on the bubbly and advised others not to fall into a similar trap by belting the old grape.

see beat the (living) daylight(s) out of under daylights n.

see sense 1 above.