An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/Belt

by Friedrich Kluge

Belt, masculine, ‘straits,’ akin to Old Icelandic belte, Anglo-Saxon and English belt, baldrick (Old High German balz), ‘girdle, shoulder-belt’?. Belt is thus a ‘zone of land’?. The cognate Latin balteus is, according to Varro, a Tuscan word.