BELT, Baltheus, properly denotes a kind of military girdle, usually of leather, wherewith the sword or other weapons are sustained.—Belts are known among the ancient and middle-age writers by divers names, as latus, zona, cingulum, remineculum, rinca or ringa, and baldrillus. The belt was an essential piece of the ancient armour; inasmuch that we sometimes find it used to denote the whole armour. In later ages, the belt was given to a person when he was raised to knighthood; whence it has also been used as a badge or mark of the knightly order.
The denomination belt is also applied to a sort of bandages in use among surgeons, &c. Thus we meet with quicksilver belts, used for the itch; belts for keeping the belly light, and discharging the water in the operation of tapping, &c.
BELT is also a frequent disease in sheep, cured by cutting their tails off, and laying the fore bare; then casting mould on it, and applying tar and goose grease.