¹belly

Our words bellows and belly both come from an Old English word belg, meaning “bag” or “purse.” The plural from belga was also used with the meaning “bellows.” It was probably a shortening of the compound word blæstbelga, literally, “blow-bags.” It is belga that ultimately gives us the modern word bellows. The singular belg gives us the modern word belly, though the use of a word meaning “bag” for “stomach” only arose in English of the later Middle Ages, after the end of the Old English period.