subs. phr. (old and still colloquial).—1. Circumstances; surroundings; accessories: qualities; endowments; faculties. 2. Possessions; goods; effects. 3. Relations; household; one’s kindred.
1603. SHAKESPEARE, Measure for Measure, i. 1. 30. Thyself and thy belongings Are not thine own so proper.
1817. BUNSEN [HARE, Life I, v. 117]. [They] did the honours of their BELONGINGS with ease.
1852. DICKENS, Bleak House. I have been trouble enough to my BELONGINGS in my day.
1854–5. THACKERAY, The Newcomes, xxxiii. When Lady Kew said, Sic volo, sic jubeo, I promise you few persons of her ladyship’s BELONGINGS stopped, before they did her biddings, to ask her reasons.
1857. RUSKIN, The Political Economy of Art, Add. § 8. Jewels, liveries, and other such common BELONGINGS of wealthy people.
1863. D. G. MITCHELL, My Farm of Edgewood, 196. When I have shown some curious city visitor all these BELONGINGS of the farm.
1866. The Saturday Review, 24 Feb., 244, 2. The rich uncle whose mission is to bring prosperity to his BELONGINGS.
1867. FURNIVALL, Percy Folio, Pref. 5. Such information … as he would wish … in order to understand the BELONGINGS of it.
1868. LOCKYER, Heavens, 26. These are the sun-spots, real movable BELONGINGS of the surface of the Sun.
1871. A. R. HOPE MONCRIEFF, My Schoolboy Friends (1875), 138. Rushing about collecting their various BELONGINGS.
1873. BROWNING, Red Cotton Night-Cap Country, c. 220.
| All my BELONGINGS, what is summed in life, | |
| I have submitted wholly … to your rule. |
1879. W. D. WHITNEY, A Sanskrit Grammar, 275. There remain, as cases of doubtful BELONGING, etc.
1883. Harper’s Magazine, March, 533. 2. She had shown us the rest of the château with a sense of being a BELONGING of the place.
1897. MARSHALL, Pomes, 69. These ‘village lasses,’ as you call them—please excuse these rude ‘Ha-ha’s’—are mostly mothers with BELONGINGS.
