Definition of "belly-up" [belly-up]

• Informal Bankrupt: The company went belly-up. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "To elaborate: Dennings is a riot as a brash Brooklyn waitress, yoked by sitcom fate to a spoiled Barbie doll bubbly Beth Behrs, a dethroned society heiress whose family has gone belly-up."
• "By one estimate, nearly 10 small snowboard shops went belly-up every week in 2009."
• "Meanwhile, across the Continent, banks and insurance companies would falter; pension funds would go belly-up, and—given a likely haircut of €0.50 per euro of Greek debt—Europe's taxpayers would have to pump up the asset side of banks' balance sheets."