belch

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English belchen, a Middle English variant beside bolken and belken,^[2][3] from a verb whose exact form the dictionaries dispute: inherited from Old English bealcian,^[4][5][6][7] bealcan,^[8][9][3] bealcettan^[10][11][12] or belcettan.^[13][9] The Shorter Oxford explains the forms in /k/ from bælcan and those in /tʃ/ from a related form or a shortening of belcettan,^[14] and Hoad also suggests a shortening, while calling the origin uncertain.^[15] Barnhart instead sees belchen (1483) as an altered form of belken, changed by palatalization.^[3] Ayto proposes an unrecorded *belcan as an alternative, and a base Proto-Germanic *balk- or *belk-,^[9] which Wiktionary writes *balkijaną.^[1] It is cognate with Middle Dutch belken (“to bellow, roar, cry out”),^[3] Middle Low German belken (“to shout”),^[16] Dutch balken (“to bray, shout”)^[4][8][16] and German bölken (“to bleat, low, belch”).^[9] Barnhart, Etymonline and the Oxford Dictionary of English consider it imitative;^[3][8][13] Barnhart and Dictionary.com see a possible link with bellow.^[3][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

To belch, in Barnhart's first date for the Old English verb, about 950, as bilkettan.^[3] The OED records both this sense and "to utter forcefully" from Old English.^[4] Bosworth–Toller quotes the Psalms: Bealcetteþ heorte mīn word gōd, rendering the Latin eructat cor meum verbum bonum.^[12]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English bolken and its variants could mean to belch or to vomit, and also to cast something up or to spill over.^[2] From the 16th century the verb was applied to expelling things by force: fumes from 1561, vomit from 1558 until 1783, and fire or smoke from a volcano or a cannon from 1580, or the 1570s in Etymonline.^[4][8] Shakespeare has it figuratively in The Tempest.^[4] The intransitive use, of discharging fire or smoke, is recorded from 1837, in Carlyle.^[4] The noun appears first figuratively, for a sudden discharge, before 1522, in Gavin Douglas's Virgil, with 1513 in Barnhart;^[4][3] for the bodily act it is recorded from 1570.^[4][5] Ayto says that the word was inoffensive until the 17th century, when its associations began to make it vulgar.^[9] Slang took up belch for poor beer, from 1699 in Green's Dictionary of Slang and 1706 in the OED, and Johnson (1755) called it a cant term for malt liquor.^[17][4][18] Grose's explanation was that beer is apt to cause eructation.^[17] In American criminal slang the verb meant to talk, or to inform on someone, from 1904.^[17] In English dialect it could be a rapid discharge of gas in a pit (Northumberland), small beer (Yorkshire) or worthless talk (Lincolnshire).^[19]

Timeline

• c. 950 – to belch, as bilkettan; about 1025 as bealcan and other forms.^[3]
• before 1325 – Middle English bolken, and belken from about 1350.^[2][3]
• 1483 – the form belchen.^[3]
• before 1522 – noun, a sudden discharge of something.^[4]
• 1558 – to vomit (obsolete by 1783).^[4]
• 1561 – to emit fumes or a smell forcefully.^[4]
• 1570 – noun, an act of belching.^[4][5]
• 1580 – of a volcano or cannon, to pour out fire or smoke.^[4]
• 1699 – noun, in slang, poor beer.^[17]
• 1837 – intransitive, to discharge fire or smoke.^[4]
• 1904 – in American slang, to talk or to inform.^[17]

Meanings

Verb

1. To expel gas noisily from the stomach through the mouth; to burp.^[16][5][4]
2. To throw out with force, or be thrown out: The old truck belched black exhaust.^[16][5][4]
3. To say something violently or bitterly.^[16][4][5]
4. (slang) In the United States, to talk, or to inform on someone.^[17]
5. (obsolete, 1558–1783) To vomit.^[4][14]

Noun

1. An act of belching.^[16][5][4]
2. A sudden violent gush: a belch of steam from the vent.^[5][4]
3. (archaic slang) Poor beer or malt liquor.^[5][14][17]

Word family

• belcher
• outbelch

Related words

• bellow

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
7. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b c d e Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
10. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
11. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
13. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
16. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
17. ^ a b c d e f g Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
18. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
19. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)