belonging

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /bɪˈlɒŋɪŋ/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /bɪˈlɔŋɪŋ/
• (cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /bɪˈlɑŋɪŋ/

• Audio (GA)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: be‧long‧ing
• Rhymes: -ɒŋɪŋ

From belong +‎ -ing.

belonging (countable and uncountable, plural belongings)

1. (uncountable) The feeling that one belongs.

   I have a feeling of belonging in London.

   A need for belonging seems fundamental to humans.

2. (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 […]

3. (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.

From Middle English belonginge, belanging, belangand, equivalent to belong +‎ -ing.

belonging

1. present participle and gerund of belong

• englobing