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Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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First published 1934 (SND Vol. I).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

BELLY-FLAUGHT, -FLAUCHT, -FLAUCHTERED, BELLIE-FLAUGHT, pa.p. used as adv.¹ [′bɛlɪ̢ ′flɑxt]

1. Flat on face, stomach.Sc. 1722 W. Hamilton Wallace 45:
Ane Beaumont strake a Squire of much Renoun Right Belly-flaught, so that withoutten mair The burnish'd Weapon him in sunder share.Abd.² 1934:
Monie a fine troot has been ta'en by loons fishin' belly-flaught [i.e. guddling].Ayr. 1887 J. Service Dr Duguid x.:
Mony a time did we creep bellyflaucht through places that I couldna win through now.Gall. 1824 MacTaggart Gallov. Encycl. 61:
When any person falls belly-flaucht, it means a fall on the broadest part of the belly.Kcb.¹ 1934:
They landed home drenched to the skin, the water running off their clothes on to the floor, and the Herd's wife remarked that they might as well have been bellyflaucht in the Green Burn.Dmf. 1822 A. Cunningham Trad. Tales II. 202:
Ye'll fall belly-flaught, breadth and length, on the lily-white linen.n.Rxb. 1923 Watson W.-B. 53:
Bellyflaucht . . . Lying flat on one's abdomen. Also ‡belly-flauchtered, thrown or laid thus.

2. †In full flight, headlong, precipitate, pell mell, like a bird descending on its prey. Lit. and fig.Sc. 1701–1731 R. Wodrow Analecta (Maitland Club 1842) III. 29:
We fell just belly-flaught on the work of conversion.Sc. 1716 Ramsay Chr. Kirke (1721) ii. i.:
The bauld Good-wife of Braith Arm'd wi' a great Kail Gully, Came bellyflaught, and loot an Aith, She'd gar them a' be hooly Fou fast that day.Hdg. 1801 R. Gall Poems (1819) 133:
Then [Duncan] belly-flaught banged in upo' them, An' gied them a weel-licked skin.Peb. 1805 J. Nicol Poems I. 31:
They met: an' aff scour'd for their fraught, . . . Nor stapt — 'till beath flew, bellie-flaught, I' the pool! — diel tak the hindmaist!wm.Sc. 1835 Laird of Logan II. 132:
The thundering waves of the ocean . . . dashed themselves belly-flaucht against the caverned rocks.