belch
Americanverb (used without object)
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belches,
present (3rd person singular)
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belched,
past participle, past
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belching
present participle
-
to eject stomach gas noisily from the mouth; burp.
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to emit contents violently, such as a gun, geyser, or volcano.
The volcano belched ominously while the town was evacuated.
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to gush forth.
Fire and smoke belched from the dragon's mouth.
verb (used with object)
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belches,
present (3rd person singular)
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belched,
past participle, past
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belching
present participle
noun
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belches
plural
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an ejection of stomach gas from the mouth.
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a violent emittance of flame, smoke, gas, etc.
verb
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(usually intr) to expel wind from the stomach noisily through the mouth; eructate
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to expel or be expelled forcefully from inside
smoke belching from factory chimneys
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to say (curses, insults, etc) violently or bitterly
noun
Usage
What does belch mean? A belch is the often noisy instance of stomach gas being released through the mouth. It often happens after you eat or especially after you drink a bubbly drink like soda. Belch can also be used as a verb meaning to release gas in such a way, as in I belched right in the middle of the meeting—it was so embarrassing. Belching is common and normal, but it’s often considered rude to belch in public, especially to do so loudly. It’s typically considered the polite thing to do to try to cover up a belch. A synonym for both the noun and verb sense of belch is burp, which is more informal. The technical medical term for belching or a belch is eructation. The verb form of this is eruct. Belch is also sometimes used in a figurative way in the context of a thing releasing gas or air or something else, especially in a messy way. A volcano can be said to belch out fumes (and such fumes can be said to be belching out of it). Example: My grandfather loved to conclude his dinner by unleashing a loud belch to signal his satisfaction.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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belchsimple
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belchessimple
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have belchedperfect
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has belchedperfect
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am belchingprogressive
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are belchingprogressive
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is belchingprogressive
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have been belchingperfect progressive
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has been belchingperfect progressive
Past
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belchedsimple
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had belchedperfect
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was belchingprogressive
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were belchingprogressive
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had been belchingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of belch
First recorded before 1000; Middle English belchen, Old English bealcettan; cognate with Dutch balken, belken to bray; perhaps extended form akin to bell 2, bellow
Vocabulary lists containing belch
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Behind them the water is a luminescent strip of blue, abutting a silhouetted skyline in which many of the buildings belch smoke; a few of the industrial structures spew fire.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
Those same people are now basking in the delight of watching online trolls spiral as they belch “terrorist” while reckoning with his likelihood to win the mayorship in November.
From Slate ● Jun. 25, 2025
While these conflagrations engulf millions of acres of lands, they belch fine particulate matter into the air, which humans inevitably inhale.
From Salon ● Jan. 10, 2025
Huge swaths of Amazon rainforest have been slashed to create pasture, releasing carbon stored in trees, and cows belch methane that’s far worse for the climate.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 3, 2024
She forgot that she’d been about to belch.
From "The School for Whatnots" by Margaret Peterson Haddix
They did the same for a series of what they call the “yums” — deep, robotic belches — that occur when Glazer switches to thermal imagery of a resistance fighter collecting apples in the night.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 12, 2023
Five time zones away from Moscow, a dilapidated Soviet-era coal-burning power station belches smoke over the corrugated-iron roofs of modest wooden homes in Ulan-Ude.
From New York Times ● Aug. 6, 2023
At any given moment, Earth’s closest star belches fast, blisteringly hot particles known as the solar wind into space.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 31, 2022
The Indonesian island of Java’s tallest volcano, Semeru, sent an ash cloud nearly a mile into the air this week—the latest uptick in unrest from a mountain that belches ash and volcanic gases almost constantly.
From Scientific American ● Dec. 6, 2022
Before Ma can answer, the ground beneath our feet shudders as the volcano belches out more lava and smoke.
From "Dragons in a Bag" by Zetta Elliott
On the train journey through steel country, he watched with awe the huge industrial furnaces that belched smoke and fire.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 22, 2026
Sections of charred scaffolding fell from the burning apartment blocks in hellish scenes late on Wednesday, as flames inside apartments sometimes belched out through windows into a night sky that glowed orange.
From Barron's ● Nov. 27, 2025
Last year, a regrettably named trend belched up from the dark cauldron of TikTok: bed rotting.
From New York Times ● Feb. 17, 2024
For nearly a century, the battery recycling plant had belched poisons such as lead and arsenic into the air.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 10, 2023
He swigged some Coke from the can, belched, stared some more.
From "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman
With black smoke belching high into the sky, Lobga staggers some 90 seconds before collapsing in flames and a U.N. security guard rushes over blasting an extinguisher.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
AFP journalists heard blasts in Bahrain's capital Manama, and saw black smoke belching from a major oil terminal in the United Arab Emirates port city of Fujairah.
From Barron's ● Mar. 15, 2026
It is an important issue given the vast number of generators belching out fumes across Nigeria as a result of the woeful power supply.
From BBC ● Nov. 17, 2024
This amount of air depends on the balance between the intake, production and elimination of gas through belching, flatulence or its consumption by the intestinal microbiota.
From Salon ● Aug. 7, 2024
We threw ourselves against the walls as it shot past in a cyclone of noise and light and belching smoke.
From "Hollow City" by Ransom Riggs
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
