Word Direct Answers

What does "girdle" mean?

Girdle: That which girds, encircles, or incloses; a circumference; a belt; esp., a belt, sash, or article of dress encircling the body usually at the waist; a cestus. Within the girdle of these walls. Shak. Their breasts girded with golden girdles. Rev. xv.

Additional senses

  1. 2.2. The zodiac; also, the equator. [Poetic] Bacon. From the world's girdle to the frozen pole. Cowper. That gems the starry girdle of the year. Campbell.
  2. 3.(Jewelry) The line ofgreatest circumference of a brilliant-cut diamond, at which it is grasped by the setting. See Illust. of Brilliant. Knight.
  3. 4.(Mining) A thin bed or stratum of stone. Raymond.
  4. 5.(Zoöl.) The clitellus of an earthworm. Girdle bone (Anat.), the sphenethmoid. See under Sphenethmoid. -- Girdle wheel, a spinning wheel. -- Sea girdle (Zoöl.), a ctenophore. See Venus's girdle, under Venus. -- Shoulder, Pectoral, and Pelvic, girdle. (Anat.) See under Pectoral, and Pelvic. -- To have under the girdle, to have bound to one, that is, in subjection.
  5. 6.To bind with a belt or sash; to gird. Shak.
  6. 7.To inclose; to environ; to shut in. Those sleeping stones, That as a waist doth girdle you about. Shak.
  7. 8.To make a cut or gnaw a groove around (a tree, etc.) through the bark and alburnum, thus killing it. [U. S.]

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