white belt

white belt (countable and uncountable, plural white belts)

1. (martial arts, uncountable) The lowest rank; beginner level.

   Coordinate terms: black belt, green belt

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

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

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

     A typical school might start beginner students at white belt.

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

     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.

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

     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!”

2. (martial arts, countable) A student at the white belt level.

   Coordinate terms: black belt, green belt

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

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

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

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

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

     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.

3. (martial arts, countable) The belt worn by a student of white belt rank as a symbol of rank.

   Coordinate terms: black belt, green belt

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

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

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

     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.

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

   Coordinate term: black belt

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

     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

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

     "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."

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