Belgae

From Latin Belgae, an Iron-Age European group of tribes located between the rivers Seine and Rhine.

Belgae pl (plural only)

1. (historical) A group of tribes living in northern Gaul, between the English Channel and the west bank of the Rhine, from at least the 3rd century BC.

• Pokorny, Julius, "The pre-Celtic inhabitants of Ireland", Celtic, DIAS, 1960 (reprint 1983), p. 231.

• Beagle, beagle, glebae

From Proto-Celtic *belg-, *bolg- (“to swell (with anger)”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰelǵʰ- (“to bulge, swell”), thus meaning "People who swell (with fury/anger)." Also see Old English belgan and Dutch gebelgd.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈbel.ɡae̯/, [ˈbɛɫ̪ɡäe̯]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈbel.d͡ʒe/, [ˈbɛl̠ʲd͡ʒe]

Belgae m pl (genitive Belgārum); first declension

1. Belgae; a group of tribes of northern Gaul
   • c. 52 BCE, Julius Caesar, Commentarii de Bello Gallico 1.1:

     Gallia est omnis dīvīsa in partēs trēs, quārum ūnam incolunt Belgae, aliam Aquītānī, tertiam quī ipsōrum linguā Celtae, nostrā Gallī appellantur.

     Gaul, taken as a whole, is divided into three parts, one of which the Belgae inhabit, the Aquitani another, those who in their own language are called Celts, in our language the Gauls, the third.

First-declension noun.

Usually plural, but the singular "Belga" is found in Lucan's Bellum Civile (1.426).

• belgicus

• “Belgae”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• Belgae in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “Belgae”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers