belonging
EnglishEdit
PronunciationEdit
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /bɪˈlɒŋɪŋ/
- (General American) IPA(key): /bɪˈlɔŋɪŋ/
Audio (GA) (file) - Rhymes: -ɒŋɪŋ
- Hyphenation: be‧long‧ing
Etymology 1Edit
NounEdit
belonging (countable and uncountable, plural belongings)
- (uncountable) The feeling that one belongs.
- I have a feeling of belonging in London.
- A need for belonging seems fundamental to humans.
- (countable, chiefly in the plural) Something physical that is owned.
- Make sure you take all your belongings when you leave.
- c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act I, scene i]:
- […] Thyself and thy belongings
- Are not thine own so proper as to waste / Thyself upon thy virtues, they on thee.
- 1939, John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, New York: Compass, 1958, Chapter 9, p. 117,[1]
- In the little houses the tenant people sifted their belongings and the belongings of their fathers and of their grandfathers. Picked over their possessions for the journey to the west.
- 1966, Truman Capote, In Cold Blood, New York: Modern Library, 1992, Part I, p. 22,[2]
- Now, upstairs, she changed into faded Levis and a green sweater, and fastened round her wrist her third most valued belonging, a gold watch […]
- (plural only, colloquial, dated) family; relations; household.
- 1854, Arthur Pendennis [pseudonym; William Makepeace Thackeray], chapter XXXIII, in The Newcomes: Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family, volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], OCLC 809623158, page 322:
- When Lady Kew said Sic volo, sic jubeo [Thus I will, thus I command], I promise you few persons of her ladyship’s belongings stopped, before they did her biddings, to ask her reasons.
- 1896, Joseph Conrad, chapter III, in An Outcast of the Islands, London: T. Fisher Unwin […], OCLC 558805776, part II, page 121:
- As soon as the principal personages were seated, the verandah of the house was filled silently by the muffled-up forms of Lakamba’s female belongings.
SynonymsEdit
- (something physical that is owned): possession, thing
TranslationsEdit
action of the verb belong
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something physical that is owned
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Etymology 2Edit
From Middle English belonginge, belanging, belangand, equivalent to belong + -ing.
VerbEdit
belonging