Definition of belt-and-suspenders
US
: involving or employing multiple methods or procedures to achieve a desired result especially out of caution or fear of failure
- A small, personal estate-planning company accurately applied belt-and-suspenders thinking when it created an instructional service for insurance salesmen to teach them how to “push” its financial plans.
- —Mack Hanan, Harvard Business Review, May-June 1976
- These are belt-and-suspenders kinds of investments.
- —Thomas P. Murphy, Forbes, 25 Dec. 1978
- We worked out a belt-and-suspenders conservative way of protecting the well that I think in the final analysis would have satisfied everyone.
- —J. Daniel Lugosch, Business Worcester, 18 Apr. 1988
- If you're smart, you will first park your winnings in a money market mutual fund or a money market account at a bank … . (If you're the belt-and-suspenders type, you could open multiple accounts to get all your money covered.)
- —New York Times, 6 Feb. 2000
