Meaning
To spend less and make do with less, usually because income has fallen or costs have risen; applied to households, companies and governments alike. The image behind it is physical: pulling a belt in a notch when there is less food. Informal and slightly stoic; implies necessary, even virtuous austerity. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The expression rests on the plain physical image of cinching a belt a notch tighter when food or money is short. The figurative use is recorded from 1887, when the Online Etymology Dictionary dates 'to tighten (one's) belt' in the sense 'endure privation'; the derived noun 'belt-tightening' followed in the twentieth century, and the idiom became a stock phrase of recessions, rationing and austerity budgets. No colourful legend attaches to it: the documented history is simply that of a household metaphor hardening into a standard idiom within about a generation of its first recorded figurative use.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- belt-tightening
- pull in one's belt
- tighten one's belt
- tighten our belts
Usage Examples
- With tuition rising again, the family is tightening its belt and postponing the holiday.
- The mayor warned that the city would have to tighten its belt after tax revenues collapsed.
- Startups that refuse to tighten their belts usually run out of money before they run out of ideas.