white belt

plural white belts

1. uncountablegovernmentThe lowest rank; beginner level.

   A typical school might start beginner students at white belt.

   2010, Jim Ollhoff, Martial Arts Around the Globe, page 30

   3 more examples

   A new student is appointed to the tenth kyu (step), or initial white belt stage.

   1983, Thomas H. Makiyama, Steve Sanders, Keijutsukai Aikido: Japanese Art of Self-defense, page 166

   This mountain you start from white belt and finish at black belt, the path up the mountain will have many twists and turns, and occasionally lead you astray.

   2013, Aaron Smalley, Developing the Mindset of a Black Belt, page 97

   There's a saying my karate buddy used to tell me when talking about white belt (beginner) versus black belt (expert) karate skills. He said, “Pros are predictable, amateurs are dangerous!”

   2014, Dave Erickson, JP Grebenc, Superior Texas Hold'em: Evolved Poker Strategy

2. countablegovernmentA student at the white belt level.

   He decided to stay and clean the floor, as he had done when he was a white belt.

   2006, Richard C. Gould, Red Sun on the Journey, page 23

   2 more examples

   When a karate student is a white belt, the student aspires to be a black belt, the top color of karate belts, someday.

   2011, Annemarie Algeo, Fat, Fit, and (Almost) Fifty, page 35

   I started attending on Sundays, and teamed up with Ian and another 'white belt', we got a 'green belt' - Ralph, to show us our first Kata.

   2012, Tom Hill, Essays for Black Belt: 20 Inspirational Student Stories

3. countablegovernmentThe belt worn by a student of white belt rank as a symbol of rank.

   My one hope as I tie this white belt on you, sir, is that one day you do me the honor of tying on your black belt.

   2017, Master Taekwon Lee, Jeffrey Nodelman, Ara's Rocky Road to White Belt, page 92

   1 more example

   For example students holding a white belt who pass the exam for high white, will wear a yellow stripe on their white belt.

   2008, Master Richard Gordon, The Complete Guide to Tae Kwon Do: Reference Manual, page 3

4. countableuncountableA region in which the majority of residents are white.

   "White prostitutes and gamblers and vicious resorts” come into the “Black Belt,” explained a black minister in Chicago, because “it is black; they operate with more safety than they do in the white belt."

   2010, Khalil Gibran Muhammad, The Condemnation of Blackness, page 226

   1 more example

   And in this white belt borderland between the black belt South and the free labor North, few whites lamented that the slave drain continued to thin blacks out of their area and to thicken the institution in the most southern South, repeating the turtle-slow erosion of slavery in the most southern North between 1776 and 1830

   2007, William W. Freehling, The Road to Disunion, page 16

5. countableuncountableUsed other than figuratively or idiomatically: see white, belt.