Belt-tighten
verb
verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Verb
- 1 To tighten one's belt. figuratively, intransitive
"They light some kind of flame in viewers who don’t have lots of attractive relatives and would enjoy learning that love matters more than money, even if it means your kids may have to go to a state school and you may have to belt-tighten down to one house instead of two."
Example
More examples"They light some kind of flame in viewers who don’t have lots of attractive relatives and would enjoy learning that love matters more than money, even if it means your kids may have to go to a state school and you may have to belt-tighten down to one house instead of two."
Etymology
Back-formation from belt-tightening, from tighten one's belt.
More for "belt-tighten"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.