belonging
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /bɪˈlɒŋɪŋ/
- (General American) IPA(key): /bɪˈlɔŋɪŋ/
- (cot–caught merger) IPA(key): /bɪˈlɑŋɪŋ/
Audio (General American): (file) - Hyphenation: be‧long‧ing
- Rhymes: -ɒŋɪŋ
Etymology 1
Noun
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.
- Synonyms: possession, thing
- 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, [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 April 14, John Steinbeck, chapter 9, in The Grapes of Wrath, New York, N.Y.: The Viking Press, →OCLC; Compass Books edition, New York, N.Y.: The Viking Press, 1967, →OCLC, page 88:
- 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, published 1992, Part I, p. 22:
- 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, volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], →OCLC, 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, 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.
Derived terms
Translations
action of the verb belong
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something physical that is owned
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Etymology 2
From Middle English belonginge, belanging, belangand, equivalent to belong + -ing.
Verb
belonging
- present participle and gerund of belong