[f. as prec. + GOD.]
1. One who makes a god of his belly; a glutton.
c. 1540. Compl. Rodk. Mors, xxii. F iv b. A sort of bellygods and ydle stoute and strong lorrels.
1620. Venner, Via Recta, vi. 102. Mixt sauces … which of ingurgitating belly-gods are greatly esteemed.
1683. Tryon, Way to Health, 395. Many of our English Belly-Gods suppose Flesh to be most mighty in its operation.
1818. Scott, Rob Roy, xxviii. ‘To see thae English belly-gods!’
attrib. c. 1570. Bp. St. Andrew’s, in Scot. Poems, II. 307. Fals Pharisianis, Bellie god bischopis.
1634–46. Row, Hist. Kirk (1842), 344. Bellie-god bishops hes little will of that work.
2. A god presiding over the appetites.
a. 1619. Fotherby, Atheom., I. xi. § 4 (1622), 117. These three Belly-gods; Bacchus, Ceres, Venus.
