bellyload of
- noun
- Informal
- After the feast, everyone had eaten a bellyload of food and could barely move.
Examples
-
She claimed she could easily handle a bellyload of spicy wings at the contest.
-
He managed to finish a bellyload of pancakes before noon.
-
He ate a bellyload of pasta last night.
-
After the feast, she felt like she had a bellyload of food.
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After the feast, everyone had eaten a bellyload of food and could barely move.
-
He managed to finish a bellyload of pancakes before noon.
-
She claimed she could easily handle a bellyload of spicy wings at the contest.
Synonyms
A very large amount of something said jokingly
A large amount of food that fills the stomach or is more than enough
An amount of food or drink that fills your belly completely
Antonyms
How Filling
Surface Forms
Morphology
bellyload + of
The sense 'an amount of food enough to fill one's stomach' is directly derivable from the constituents: 'belly' (stomach) + 'load' (a large quantity) with the preposition 'of' linking to the food. Although 'bellyload' itself is rare, the compositional logic (stomach + load = quantity that fills the stomach) is transparent and follows common, cross-linguistic patterns, so a B1 learner who knows the parts would readily infer the meaning.
Etymology
Bellyload of comes from a simple picture: your belly is like a bag and the load is the food packed inside. So, when someone says they ate a bellyload of food, they mean they 'filled their stomach' or ate 'a very large amount of food'.