an extra-cautious approach that involves redundant elements in case one of them fails to perform as expected, used due to extreme prudence, perceived risk, experience, etc.; comes from the image of the gentleman wearing both a belt and suspenders (or braces, for the Brits) for the purpose of holding up his trousers, despite the fact that only one is necessary absent a highly-unlikely failure; in addition to noun form this term can be used as an adjective, as in “Keep both projectors live for the keynote, we need to go belt-and-suspenders given how important the CEO’s presentation is”; as with the original sartorial example, such a strategy can be clumsy or ungainly due to the additional backups involved