belly vs knife-edge

belly

noun
  • The main curved portion of a knife blade. 

  • The stomach. 

  • The abdomen, especially a fat one. 

  • The part of anything which resembles (either closely or abstractly) the human belly in protuberance or in concavity; often, the fundus (innermost part). 

  • The womb. 

  • The hollow part of a curved or bent timber, the convex part of which is the back. 

  • The lower fuselage of an airplane. 

verb
  • To swell and become protuberant; to bulge or billow. 

  • To cause to swell out; to fill. 

  • To position one’s belly; to move on one’s belly. 

knife-edge

noun
  • Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: the edge of a knife. 

  • A piece of steel sharpened to an acute edge or angle, and resting on a smooth surface, serving as the axis of motion of a pendulum, scale beam, or other piece required to oscillate with the least possible friction. 

  • A precarious balance that could be upset by a very small force in either direction. 

How often have the words belly and knife-edge occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )