bellycheer
English
editEtymology
editFrom belly + cheer? Perhaps from French belle chère, lovely fare.
Noun
editbellycheer (uncountable)
- (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!
References
edit- “bellycheer”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.