belted ammunition
- noun
- /ˈbɛltɪd ˌæmjʊˈnɪʃən/
- Specialized
- Belted ammunition is designed to feed smoothly into a machine gun for rapid firing.
Examples
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The soldier loaded belted ammunition into the machine gun before heading into battle.
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During the exercise, the troops practiced reloading belted ammunition quickly and efficiently.
-
Ordinarily, Clark carried the M-60 machine gun, which uses belted ammunition.
Academic text (2013)
Synonyms
A linked strip of small bullets used in a machine gun
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound is largely compositional — 'belted' can be understood as 'on/attached to a belt' and 'ammunition' as bullets — so a learner could infer 'ammo carried or linked on a belt.' However, the sense of 'belt' as a linked feeding strip for machine guns is a specialized/military usage (distinct from the everyday clothing sense), so the exact technical meaning may not be fully predictable to a B1 learner.
Etymology
Belted ammunition comes from the image of bullets joined together on a flexible strip like a belt, with small metal links holding them so they can be fed into a machine gun. Because the bullets are literally 'belted' together to feed the weapon without stopping, the term means 'ammunition in a linked strip for a machine gun'.