bellycheer

English

Etymology

belly +‎ cheer? Perhaps from French belle chère, lovely fare.

Noun

bellycheer (uncountable)

1. (obsolete) feasting
   • 1616, Christopher Marlowe, The Tragedy of Doctor Faustus:

     He's now at supper with the scholars, where there's such
     belly-cheer as Wagner in his life ne'er
     saw the like: and,
     see where they come! belike the feast is ended.

   • 1641, John Milton, Animadversions upon the Remonstrants Defence against Smectymnuus; republished in A Complete Collection of the Historical, Political, and Miscellaneous Works of John Milton, […], volume I, Amsterdam [actually London: s.n.], 1698, →OCLC, page 161:

     and capable onely of loaves and belly-cheer!

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “bellycheer”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)