belly-timber

== English == === Alternative forms === bellytimber, belly-tember, belly-timmer, and as two separate words === Etymology === From belly +‎ timber. === Pronunciation === IPA(key): /ˈbɛliˌtɪmbə/ === Noun === belly-timber (usually uncountable, plural belly-timbers) (archaic, now only humorous or dialectal) Food, provender. Synonyms: see Thesaurus:food 1663, Samuel Butler, Hudibras, London: Printed by J. G. for Richard Marriot, under Saint Dunstan's Church in Fleetstreet, OCLC 43488441; republished as Henry G[eorge] Bohn, editor, Hudibras, by Samuel Butler; with Variorum Notes, Selected Principally from Grey and Nash, volume I, London: Henry G. Bohn, 1859, OCLC 224652699, part 1, canto 1: And tho' knights errant, as some think, / Of old did neither eat nor drink, / Because when thorough deserts vast, / And regions desolate, they past, / Where belly-timber above ground, / Or under, was not to be found [...] 1718, Matthew Prior, "Alma; or, The Progress of the Mind", in Poems on Several Occasions, London: J[acob] Tonson and J. Barber, OCLC 458176403, canto III; republished in Samuel Johnson; Alexander Chalmers, The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper; including the Series Edited, with Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, by Dr. Samuel Johnson: And the Most Approved Translations. The Additional Lives by Alexander Chalmers, F.S.A. In Twenty-one Volumes. Hughes, Sheffield, Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Fenton, Gay, volume X, London: Printed for J. Johnson [et al.], 1810, OCLC 163876838, page 202: The strength of every other member / Is founded on your belly-timber; / The qualms or raptures of your blood, / Rise in proportion to your food; [...]