[f. as prec. + -ING1. Perhaps the pl. belongings was orig. taken from the pr. pple., in sense of ‘things belonging.’]
I. Usually in pl. only.
1. Circumstances connected with a person or thing; relations with another person or thing.
1603. Shaks., Meas. for M., I. i. 30. Thy selfe and thy belongings Are not thine owne so proper.
1867. Furnivall, Percy Folio, Pref. 5. Such information … as he would wish … in order to understand the belongings of it.
1873. Browning, Red Cott. Nt.-cap, 220. All my belongings, what is summed in life, I have submitted wholly … to your rule.
2. Possessions, goods, effects.
1817. B’ness Bunsen, in Hare, Life, I. v. 117. [They] did the honors of their belongings with ease.
1857. Ruskin, Pol. Econ. Art, Add. § 8. Jewels, liveries, and other such common belongings of wealthy people.
1871. ‘A. Hope,’ Schoolboy Fr. (1875), 158. Rushing about collecting their belongings.
3. Persons related in any way; relatives.
1852. Dickens, Bleak H., II. 103. I have been trouble enough to my belongings in my day.
1866. Sat. Rev., 24 Feb., 224/2. The rich uncle whose mission is to bring prosperity to his belongings.
4. A Thing connected with, forming a part, appendage or accessory of another.
1863. D. Mitchell, Farm Edgew., 196. When I have shown some curious city visitor all these belongings of the farm.
1868. Lockyer, Heavens (ed. 3), 26. These are the ‘Sun-spots,’ real movable belongings of the surface of the Sun.
1883. G. H. Boughton, in Harper’s Mag., March, 533/2. She had shown us the rest of the château with a sense of being a belonging of the place.
II. The fact of appertaining, relationship.
1879. Whitney, Skr. Gram., 275. There remain, as cases of doubtful belonging: [etc.].
