1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Belt

BELT (a word common to Teutonic languages, the Old Ger. form being balz, from which the Lat. balteus probably derived), a flat strap of leather or other material used as a girdle (q.v.), especially the cinctura gladii or sword-belt, the chief “ornament of investiture” of an earl or knight; in machinery, a flexible strap passing round from one drum, pulley or wheel to another, for the purpose of power-transmission (q.v.). The word is applied to any broad stripe, to the belts of the planet Jupiter, to the armour-belt at the water-line of a warship, or to a tract of country, narrow in proportion to its length, with special distinguishing characteristics, such as the earthquake-belt across a continent.