conveyor belt

American

noun

Machinery.

an endless belt or chain, set of rollers, etc., for carrying materials or objects short distances, as from one part of a building to another.

conveyor belt British

noun

a flexible endless strip of fabric or linked plates driven by rollers and used to transport objects, esp in a factory

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

conveyor belts

plural

Etymology

Origin of conveyor belt

First recorded in 1905–10

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:

conveyor belt

At a recycling plant in Coventry, I watched staff sorting rubbish on a fast-moving conveyor belt when a crushed yellow sharps container suddenly appeared among the waste.

From BBC ● Oct. 29, 2026

To some, marketing engineer is merely the latest on that conveyor belt of titles: a regular marketer dressed up in the AI fashion of the day.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 30, 2026

I, too, couldn’t shake the thought of a meat factory and almost instantly, realized I wanted off the conveyor belt.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 5, 2026

This combination — a demographic conveyor belt of affluent consumers entering the ages when gravity becomes an issue — is a compelling investment thesis.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 5, 2026

The guard—her name tag says Irene—stops my bin from traveling onto the conveyor belt, as she’s done every day.

From "The Sun Is Also a Star" by Nicola Yoon

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023