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Girdle   /gˈərdəl/   Listen
Girdle

noun
1.
An encircling or ringlike structure.
2.
A band of material around the waist that strengthens a skirt or trousers.  Synonyms: cincture, sash, waistband, waistcloth.
3.
A woman's close-fitting foundation garment.  Synonyms: corset, stays.



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"Girdle" Quotes from Famous Books



... the draperies; all is monotonous, unobservant, unimaginative—the work of a feeble man whose pains will never extend much beyond those necessary to make him pass as stronger than he is; especially the folds in the white linen over S. Nicholas's throat, and about his girdle—weaker drapery can hardly be than this, unless, perhaps, that from under which S. Nicholas's hands come. There is not only no art here to conceal, but there is not even pains to conceal the want of art. As for the hands themselves, and ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler

... her headgear is off, her hair looks like a black corona. She is wonderfully beautiful, wonderfully beautiful. Her gown was of red stuff. Perhaps it was of velvet like the cap. It was hitched up with a cord and girdle, with tassels of gold lace and—and—Sir Karl, you are ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major

... this reasonable, so she took off her girdle and lent it to Juno, an act by the way which argues more good nature than prudence on her part. Then Juno goes down to Thrace, and in search of Sleep the brother of Death. She finds him and shakes hands with him. Then she tells him she is going up to Olympus to make love to Jove, and ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler

... doctor was, like many other wise men, subject to petticoat government. He was completely under the sway of his housekeeper; a spare, busy, fretting housewife, in a little, round, quilted, German cap, with a huge bunch of keys jingling at the girdle of an exceedingly long waist. Frau Ilse (or Frow Ilsy, as it was pronounced) had accompanied him in his various migrations from Germany to England, and from England to the province; managing his establishment and himself too: ruling him, ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... his mantle round him, and looked towards the door. It was not long before Romola entered, all white and gold, more than ever like a tall lily. Her white silk garment was bound by a golden girdle, which fell with large tassels; and above that was the rippling gold of her hair, surmounted by the white mist of her long veil, which was fastened on her brow by a band of pearls, the gift of Bernardo del Nero, and was now parted off her face so ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... of the damsel lost their fire and sought the floor; and she plucked at her girdle, and would not look on Deodonato. And ...
— Frivolous Cupid • Anthony Hope

... in the dark thoroughfare, sighed heavily; then, spitting on his hands, he tightened the old girdle round his loins, and slinging the lanthorn on his staff, held it up to the level of his waist, and began to make his way along the street. His progress was but slow, for he had many times to stop and rekindle the flame within his lanthorn, which the bats' ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... number of articles I have sent to The Outlook, to be rejected by Hamilton W. Mabie. There is one man here to-night that has a job cut out for him that none of you would have had—a man whose humor has put a girdle of light around the globe, and whose sense of humor has been an example for all five continents. He is going to speak to you. Gentlemen, you know him best as ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... youthful was inexpressibly graceful—her black hair was bound in tresses round her head and her brows were encompassed by a fillet—her dress was that of a simple tunic bound at the waist by a broad girdle and a mantle which fell over her left arm she was encompassed by several youths of both sexes who appeared to hang on her words & to catch the inspiration as it flowed from her with looks either of eager wonder or stedfast attention with eyes all bent ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

... the trunk of a tree in winter when it is clothed in the rough fustian of moss. He wore a cowl on his head and sandals on his feet. He carried no stick. His hands were clasped inside the sleeves of his robe, and a cord served as girdle. He kept his bony face turned toward the moon, and the moon was less pale than it. One could clearly distinguish his eagle's nose and his deep eyes, which were like those of asses, and his black beard on which tufts of lamb's wool had been left ...
— Romance of the Rabbit • Francis Jammes

... in atonement for her sins, to sit at a frugal table; to consecrate her vast wealth to objects of benevolence; to wear haircloth next her skin, and around her waist a girdle with sharp points, which lacerated her body at every movement. She was also daily employed in making garments of the coarsest materials with her own hands for the sick in the hospitals, and for the poor in their ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... a crime to take you back into the house. What have you to do with whether or no we are asked to the next garden-party in Downing Street? You are Ariel and can put a girdle round the earth.... I am almost afraid of you. Can't we run away and become strolling players? You may think I am to be envied but my life has been a very unhappy one.... I want to ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan

... a perfect sphere with a smooth surface, and a girdle of steel were placed round the Equator so that it touched ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney

... dussens or hampshire kersies lynd, the hose with skins, dublets with lynen of gilford or gedlyman kerseys," four bands, two handkerchiefs, a "wastcoate of greene cotton bound about with red tape," a leather girdle, a Monmouth cap, a "black hatt lyned in the browes with lether," five "Red knit capps mill'd about 5d a piece," two pair of gloves, a mandillion "lyned with cotton," one pair of breeches and waistcoat, and a "lether sute of Dublett & breeches of oyled ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle

... been visiting; his constant thought of her, even upon his bridal tour, being plainly shown by these: a ring from Venice, of wrought gold with aquamarines, some Spanish embroideries, quaint carvings; and finally he put the cap upon his extravagance by producing from an inner pocket a girdle of Egyptian workmanship, too valuable by far for her to ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane

... sense of his own importance; but presently the captain returned, and beckoned to Arthur, who had been kneeling beside poor Tam, moistening his lips, and bathing his face, as he lay gasping and apparently unconscious, except that he had gripped hold of his broad sash or girdle when ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge

... have never dreamed of. To look into the future there is nothing sunny or bright. Illiterate, they marry young some poor fellow, and with no money they begin life, build their cabin home in the timber land, girdle a few acres of the stately trees of oak and chestnut, and there raise a family to take the same dark and gloomy view of ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 2, February, 1889 • Various

... fired, lowered his pistol to repeat the shot, he sprang forward, and struck him with all his weight and strength on the temple. The man fell like a log, his pistol exploding as he did so. With a cry like that of a wounded animal Minette had turned around, snatched a dagger from her girdle, and, as the man fell, she sprang to his side and leant over him with uplifted knife. Cuthbert caught her wrist as ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty

... proportion. House was none Void of its family; nor yet had come Hardanapalus, to exhibit feats Of chamber prowess. Montemalo yet O'er our suburban turret rose; as much To be surpass in fall, as in its rising. I saw Bellincione Berti walk abroad In leathern girdle and a clasp of bone; And, with no artful colouring on her cheeks, His lady leave the glass. The sons I saw Of Nerli and of Vecchio well content With unrob'd jerkin; and their good dames handling The spindle and the flax; O happy they! Each sure of burial in her native land, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... Spain and England, naturally made Louis the Twelfth desirous to secure the good-will of a prince, who might be said to wear the keys of the Pyrenees as the king of Sardinia did those of the Alps, at his girdle. With these amicable dispositions, the king and queen of Navarre despatched their plenipotentiaries to Blois, early in May, soon after the battle of Ravenna, with full powers to conclude a treaty of alliance and confederation with ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott

... Minuchihr went in pursuit, and besieged the castle. One day a warrior named Kaku made a sally out of the fort, and approaching the centre of the besieging army, threw a javelin at Minuchihr, which, however, fell harmless before it reached its aim. Then Minuchihr seized the enemy by the girdle, raised him up in air, and flung him from his saddle ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... of Carthage And gey young to drown; But hold you to my girdle That goes me around; And swim with me to Saaron, ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... imagined. She was dressed as I remembered once to have seen her two years before, in the gauzy silks of the harem. There were pearls glittering like great tears amid the cloud of her wonderful hair. She wore broad gold bangles upon her bare arms, and her fingers were laden with jewellery. A heavy girdle swung from her hips, defining the lines of her slim shape, and about one white ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer

... no covering for the upper part of his person—a garb offering fewest obstructions to his movements through the forest. In his hand he held a bow; a quiver full of arrows was slung across his back; the tomahawk was returned to the girdle around his loins, and a knife hung by a deer-sinew from ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams

... are at her feet, (Roses are red in her red-gold hair) And O where her bosom and girdle meet Red roses are ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde

... in 1813. Napoleon and his whole army supposed the interior of Bohemia to be very mountainous,—whereas there is no district in Europe more level, after the girdle of mountains surrounding it has been crossed, which may be done in a ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini

... Tom Thurnall to himself, as Frank left the room, "to begin life again with an old penknife and a pound of honeydew. I wonder which of them got my girdle. I'll stick here till I find out that one thing, and stop the notes by to-day's post if I can but recollect them all;—if I could but stop ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... reached St. Paul they went into camp near some lake, and were a great source of interest to all the newcomers. During their stay the town would be thronged with the men, who were dressed in vari-colored costumes, always including the sash of Pembina, a beautiful girdle, giving them a most picturesque appearance. The only truthful representation of these curious people that has been preserved is found in two full length portraits of Joe Rollette, one in the gallery of the Minnesota Historical ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau

... every direction in search of him, and to avoid his pursuers, turned aside a short distance, and climbed into a tree. From this situation he did not dare to come down till the night was fairly gone, when he shifted the position of his clothes, turning his cloak inside out, using his turban for a girdle and his girdle for a turban, and took his way. He had, however, not proceeded far, when one of the patriarch's men discovered him, and called out, "Asaad is it you?" He answered, "it is I." The man immediately ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... was speaking he thrust his hand into the inmost fold of his girdle and drew out three great gems—one blue as a fragment of the night sky, one redder than a ray of sunrise, and one as pure as the peak of a snow mountain at twilight—and laid them on the out-spread ...
— The Story of the Other Wise Man • Henry Van Dyke

... and tomahawk were thrust in his girdle at his waist, and throughout this laborious task he had held his rifle fast, so ...
— The Story of Red Feather - A Tale of the American Frontier • Edward S. (Edward Sylvester) Ellis

... His own peculiar people, and to witness, amidst the idolatrous nations around them, to the living and true God. The heart of God was set upon them. His love was freely poured out upon them, and He had bound them to Himself, closely as a man bound around him his valued girdle. They were the descendants of faithful Abraham, of Isaac, and Jacob. They had become great, and mighty, and powerful, spreading themselves out like the cedars of Lebanon, and flourishing like the stately palms. All the surrounding ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... be one of the best wrestlers in all Brittany: he entered into the lists, having thrown off his long jacket, in hose and doublet: when he was near the little man, it looked as though the little man had been tied to his girdle. Nevertheless, when they gripped each other round the neck, they were a long time without doing anything, and we thought they would remain equal in force and skill: but the little man suddenly leaped beneath this big Dativo, and took him on his shoulder, and threw him to earth on his back all spread ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various

... he chuckled. 'As you came up the wicket way I sent my John to turn the key upon her. It's there at his girdle.' It clinked indeed among rules, T-squares and callipers at each footstep of the heavy printer ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford

... with more precaution. The nephew, with drawn sabre, rode in front; pistols at his holsters, and the usual Spanish gun slung at his saddle. Behind him tramped six men in a rank, with muskets shouldered, and each of them wore at his girdle a hatchet, which was probably intended to cleave the thieves to the brisket should they venture to come to close quarters. There were six vehicles, two of them calashes, in which latter rode the Fidalgo and his daughters; the others ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... carnival-like revelry. Gerald was not in a mood for talking, and he felt little inclined to disturb her. It was companionship enough merely to glance at her ever and anon as she sat silently in the stern, the red ropes of the tiller drawn loosely around her slender waist like a silken girdle. He wondered idly what she was thinking of. Her broad hat threw too deep a shadow for him to see her face save when they neared one of the beacon rafts; then it was suddenly in brilliant illumination, ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield

... great flourish he drew a paper from his girdle, unrolled it with many snappings and cracklings, and thrust it before the face of Pak Chung Chang. Upon the paper was ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London

... that a wife had sold for 60 cents, belonging to her husband. He also wanted to see the gold that dad had shown as coming from the mine, and when dad showed him the yellow boys he took them as souvenirs and put them in his girdle, and then I thought dad would faint, but he kept his nerve like a poker player betting ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck

... and then the Grand Canary. Teneriffe is perhaps the most beautiful, but it is hard to judge between it and Grand Canary as seen from the sea. The superb cone this afternoon stood out a deep purple against a serpent-green sky, separated from the brilliant blue ocean by a girdle of pink and gold cumulus, while Grand Canary and Lancarote looked as if they were formed from fantastic-shaped sunset cloud-banks that by some spell had been solidified. The general colour of the mountains of Grand Canary, which rise peak after ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... pusillanimous treachery of senators and knights. On the second day, when, with limbs too dislocated to admit of her standing, she was again brought to the presence of her executioners, she succeeded, by a sudden movement, in strangling herself with her own girdle. ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... above and traceable through its green landscape till it emptied itself into the ocean. Before them lay a beautiful island of richest pasturage, beyond which was seen the north branch of the Savannah bordered by the slopes of Carolina, with a dark girdle of trees resting against the horizon. Behind them was the unbroken forest of tall green pines, with an occasional oak draperied with festoons of gray moss or the druidical mistletoe. A wide expanse of varied beauty was before them; an ample and lofty plain around ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various

... sop quickly," said I, "or by Peter-and-Paul I will speak to my father. He and I can well be doing with beaten cakes made crisp on the iron girdle. In these you have ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... shook her head silently. As they pressed her further with questions, she threw them the golden chain from her neck. But they did not leave off, and she threw them her girdle, and when this was no use, her garters, and then her dress. The huntsmen would not leave her alone, but climbed the tree, lifted the maiden down, and led her to the King. The King asked, 'Who are you? What are you doing up ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various

... seem'd to carry weight, With leathern girdle braced: For all might see the bottle necks Still dangling at ...
— The Diverting History of John Gilpin • William Cowper

... her teams of doves and sparrows! By the bower of Phyllis and the girdle of Egypt's self! I ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford

... are interesting; and there is a much greater variety of them here than in America,—people who cast themselves on Fortune, and take whatever she gives without a certainty of anything. I saw a travelling tinker yesterday,—a man with a leather apron, and a string of skewers hung at his girdle, and a pack over his shoulders, in which, no doubt, were his ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... so pleased with the stories told by the wonderful chair that he gave Snowflower many presents, among which was a golden girdle, and promised that she should no longer go into low company, but feast with him and his nobles in the chief hall, and sleep in one of the best ...
— Granny's Wonderful Chair • Frances Browne

... me, mistress of all woe? Say, wilt thou bear me to another land Where thou hast other lovers? Rise and go Where dark the pine trees upon Ida stand, For there did one unloose thy girdle band; Or seek the forest where Adonis bled, Or wander, wander on the yellow sand, Where thy first lover strew'd ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang

... not a girdle—it is a belt," was Dicky Fergus' reply. "The gods gave it to him because he was a favorite. There was a lady called Artemis—she was the last of them. But he went visiting with Eos, another lady of previous acquaintance, ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker

... smale braunches; and men clepen hem figes of Pharoon. Also besyde Cayre, withouten that cytee, is the feld where bawme growethe: and it cometh out on smale trees, that ben non hyere than a mannes breek girdle: and thei semen as wode that is of the wylde vyne. And in that feld ben 7 welles, that oure Lord Jesu Crist made with on of his feet, whan he wente to pleyen with other children. That feld is not so well closed, but that men may entren at here owne list. But in that ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation. v. 8 - Asia, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt

... Arab sprung; similarly here and there, vainly hoping to give his antagonist a death-blow. At last, overcome by impatience, he approached so boldly that Heimbert, warding off the threatening weapon, had time to seize the Arab by the girdle and drag him from the fast-galloping horse. The violence of the movement threw Heimbert also on the ground, but he lay above his opponent, and holding close before his eyes a dagger, which he had ...
— The Two Captains • Friedrich de La Motte-Fouque

... And sweat, sir. Why, your gold Is such another med'cine, it dries up All those offensive savours: it transforms The most deformed, and restores them lovely, As 'twere the strange poetical girdle. Jove Could not invent t' himself a shroud more subtle To pass Acrisius' guards. It is the thing Makes all the world her ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson

... river—a dangerous river, indeed, a perpetual menace to the place—every drawback, or nearly so, which a town may conceivably possess, and all of them huddled into a fatally unhealthy environment, compressed in a girdle of fire and poison. Human ingenuity has obviated them so effectually, so triumphantly that, were green pastures not needful to me as light and air, I, for one, would nevermore stray beyond those ancient ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas

... Oh, at mass in our Lady Church of Paris, where that day was a miracle done on two that were possessed of the Devil, whose names were Geoffrey Boder and Jeanne La Petite; and the girdle of Saint Mary being shown on the high altar, they were allowed to touch the same, whereon they were healed straightway. And the Queen, with her own hands, gave them alms, a crown; and her oblation to the image of Saint Mary in the said church, being a festival, was a crown (her daily oblation being ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt

... with the Companies of Foot; and a little after came all the arti, carrying each one his great cero all painted, and accompanied by all the wind instruments. It was a thing sweet to hear and beautiful to see. The offering made, they went out to bring the silver girdle[35] borne with great pomp on a carretta; and there assisted all the clergy in procession with exquisite music both of voices and of instruments. The usual ceremonies being over, they encircled the Cathedral, and hung the girdle to the irons that were set round about. Yes, it was this girdle ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton

... Eydtkuhnen, under the pearl-gray northern sky, lies East Prussia. Hereabout it is flat and fertile, with lavish, eye-fatiguing levels of cornland stretching away to Insterburg and beyond to Koenigsberg's formidable girdle of forts. Here are many villages, and scattered between them innumerable hamlets of only two or three houses, and a small town or two. Most of them are empty now; the German army that leans its back on the Vistula's fortresses has cleared ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various

... Various instruments appertaining to the arts and sciences lie scattered around her; after having made use of them, she has cast them aside and has fallen into a profound revery. As typical of the mistrust which has crept into her heart with avarice and doubt, a bunch of keys is suspended to her girdle; above her is an hour-glass, the emblem of her transitory existence. Nothing could be more admirable than the face of Melancholy, both in the severe beauty of her features and the depth ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... corners of the roof, their legs dangling over. Scaramouche, all in black in the Spanish fashion of the seventeenth century, his face adorned with a pair of mostachios, jangled a guitar discordantly. Harlequin, ragged and patched in every colour of the rainbow, with his leather girdle and sword of lath, the upper half of his face smeared in soot, clashed a pair of cymbals intermittently. Pasquariel, as an apothecary in skull-cap and white apron, excited the hilarity of the onlookers by his enormous tin clyster, which emitted when ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... staff, and tightening his girdle, faced the hairy Gefroi; and there befell that, the which, though you shall find no mention of it in any chronicle, came much to be talked of thereafter; so that a ballade was writ of ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol

... down and it touched a stiff little edge of paper thrusting from my girdle. I drew it out. It was my dance program. I had quite forgotten about it. One side of it was scrawled thickly with names, but most of the other side was clear, and the little white pencil was still ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain

... builds in quite another fashion, although its work, once finished, does not differ from that of the Bembex. The larva surrounds itself, to begin with, about the middle of its body with a silken girdle which a number of threads, very irregularly distributed, hold in place and connect with the walls of the cell. Sand is collected, within reach of the worker, on this general scaffolding. Then begins the work of minor masonry, with ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre

... remains of which indicate it to have represented a lion. It has, from this circumstance, been inferred that the statue was that of William the Lion, the founder of the abbey. The figure has, however, been attired in flowing robes, and a purse hangs from the girdle. But the portions of this fragment which chiefly contributed to rouse curiosity, are some incrustations, which had at first the appearance of the effigies of lizards crawling along the main figure. It was supposed that these reptiles ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various

... and the Sovereign Judge. St. Sixtus is seen on the right in profile, his head is raised towards the Infant Jesus, his left hand is placed devoutly on his breast while his right is foreshortened and points towards the spectator. He wears a white rochet tied by a girdle with golden tassels, a white amice around his neck, a magnificent pallium woven with gold falling to his feet, and a long chasuble embroidered with gold and lined with red enveloping his shoulders and arms, the wide folds of which are lost amid the clouds. His head is bare, and his white tiara, ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton

... provided, chiefly from those stored in the Town-Hall for the use of the militia. The two principal leaders next to the Duke were Lord Grey of Wark, who had landed with a musket on his shoulder, a pair of pistols in his girdle, and, far more important to the cause, a Scotch gentleman, a soldier of experience, Fletcher of Salton, who, taking command of the men, at once ordered some to take possession of the forts, others to guard the avenues, and the remainder ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston

... With its one tough and keen blade one may skin a sheep, file a saw, split wood, mend a wagon, defend one's self vigorously if need be, make a buttonhole and eat one's breakfast. No Servian who adheres to the ancient costume would consider himself dressed unless the crooked knife hung from his girdle. Although the country-side along the Danube is rough, and travellers are said to need protection among the Servian hills, I could not discover that the inhabitants wore other weapons than these useful articles of cutlery. Yet they are daring smugglers, and sometimes openly ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various

... the Wild Master sharply and sullenly. Yashka started. The booth-keeper pulled down his girdle and cleared his throat. ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev

... in; Roger's room was full of light, and as his wife entered she faced it. She glittered from head to foot like an ice maiden under a blazing sun. She wore a wreath of diamond roses; round her waist was a girdle of diamonds with long tasselled ends; on her white satin shoes were diamond buckles; and over her bare, white neck, her young gauze-enfolded bosom, hung the ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... incense, [218:1] no splendid vestments. For probably the whole of the first century, she celebrated her religious ordinances in private houses, [218:2] and her ministers officiated in their ordinary costume. John, the forerunner of our Saviour, "had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins;" [218:3] but perhaps few of the early Christian preachers were arrayed in ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... in width, this horrible beast fell heavily on Rinaldo, who was nevertheless quick enough to give it a blow on the snout which increased its fury. Returning the knight a tremendous cuff, it seized his coat of mail between breast and shoulder, and tore away a great strip of it down to the girdle, leaving the skin bare. Every successive rent and blow was of the like irresistible violence; and though the Paladin himself never fought with more force and fury, he lost blood every instant. The monster at length tearing his sword out of his hand, the Paladin surely began to think that his ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt

... reached the house Angus bumped the door open without knocking, and stamped into the kitchen. Jean was bending over the fire turning a scone on the girdle, when the noise at the door made her jump and look around. She was so amazed at the sight which met her eye that for an instant she stood stock-still, and Angus, seeing that he had only two children to deal with, gave Jock's ear a vicious tweak and ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... the mention of a narrow girdle, (as none could appear stark naked in the theatre,) Procopius thus proceeds. I have heard that a learned prelate, now deceased, was fond of quoting this ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... time; one was told to redeem the time, whatever that might mean. The ideal mother of the family, in the little books which I used to read in my childhood, was a lady who appeared punctually at breakfast, and had a bunch of keys hanging at her girdle. Breakfast over, she paid a series of visits, looked into the larder, weighed out stores, and then settled down to some solid reading or embroidered a fire-screen; the afternoon would be spent in visits of benevolence, carrying ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson

... went on emphatically, and as she spoke she disengaged her watch from her girdle, "that you fired it at six o'clock. It ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... curls upon his chest. His picturesque dress—that of the Tyrol—comprised a red waistcoat, crossed by green braces, which were fastened to black knee breeches of chamois leather, below which he wore red stockings. A broad black leather girdle clasped his muscular form, while over all was worn a short green coat. On his head he wore a low-crowned, broad-brimmed Tyrolean hat, black in color, and ornamented with green ribbons and with the feathers of ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris

... was opened by a lay Brother in a brown habit, a girdle about the waist from which a great Rosary beads was suspended. The peasant turned a soft black hat nervously in his hands as he delivered his message. The Friar who visited ailing people was, he said, wanted. A young man was lying very ill away up on the hills. Nothing that had been done for him ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly

... can be very troublesome. An Oriental robe, if left ungirdled, entangles the feet, or is caught by the wind and hinders one's goings. And therefore the wearer binds the loose attire together with a girdle, and makes it firm and compact about his body. And loose principles can be more dangerous than loose garments. Indefinite opinions, caught by the passing wind of popular caprice, are both a peril and a burden. Many people go through life with loose beliefs ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett

... came Daddy Neptune with a glittering crown, a beard of oakum reaching to his middle, a girdle of rope yarn round his waist, a cloak covered with strange devices, and a huge trident ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston

... fringed ends, and richly embroidered, worn by the clergy upon special occasions. Sacerdotal, from Lat. sacerdos, a priest. Stole, from Lat. stola, a long dress worn by Roman women over their tunic and fastened with a girdle. ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin

... lightning swept Through ranks of foes hard pressed, Now hangs beside Our Lady's shrine, Henceforth in peace to rest,— And soon the penitent's rough, dark robe, His girdle and cowl of gloom, Will replace the soldier's armor bright, And his ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

... the fray, fell upon the dismounted nobles, slew one, and throwing his lasso round the neck of the other, tied him to his saddle and dragged him over the plain, after having taken from him his sword from its rich hilt and removed from his girdle ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... the merchants cannot come at the diamonds save by the device aforesaid. So, when I saw the slaughtered beast fall (he pursued) and bethought me of the story, I went up to it and filled my pockets and shawl-girdle and turband and the folds of my clothes with the choicest diamonds; and, as I was thus engaged, down fell before me another great piece of meat. Then with my unrolled turband and lying on my back, I set the bit on my breast so that I was hidden by the meat, which was thus raised above the ground. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... which thus forms a girdle to the coast, the country suddenly begins to improve. The soil changes to a thin layer of vegetable mould, resting on a stratum of yellow clay, which is again supported by a deep bed of schistus. The trees of the forest are here of ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth

... are as useful as of old. But how much wider is the field of electricity as it creates the telegraph and the telephone! In the telegraph we have all that a pencil of light could be were it as long as an equatorial girdle and as flexible as a silken thread. In the telephone for nearly two thousand miles the pulsations of the speaker's voice are not only audible, ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various

... of an immoderate Length, being tied before in such a manner that the two Ends hung down to her Girdle; but whether these supply the Place of Kissing-Strings in our Enemy's Country, and whether our British Ladies have any occasion for them, I shall leave ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... route was the well-built telegraph line, in working order to St. Petersburg. It seemed to shorten the distance between me and home when I knew that the electric current had a continuous way to America. Puck would put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes. From China to California, more than half the circuit of the globe, we can flash a signal in a second of time, and gain by the hands of the clock more than ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox

... strong hand fell a-trembling. Of a sudden he raised his eyes to heaven, then, coming to his mother's grave, very reverently took thence a single great bloom and thrusting the shoe in the wallet at his girdle (that same wallet Sir Fidelis had borne) went ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol

... as before heard in silence the king— Till a youth with an aspect unfearing but gentle, 'Mid the tremulous squires—stept out from the ring, Unbuckling his girdle, and doffing his mantle; And the murmuring crowd as they parted asunder, On the stately boy cast ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)

... the meaning of the word enciente? The Roman women were accustomed to wear a tight girdle about their waists which was called a cincture. This they removed when they were pregnant. They were then said to be incincta, or unbound. The term enciente is derived from this, and is frequently used ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... sincerely that the woman was melted and ended by offering her sister as a maid! The girl had the best of references, and as she must have someone and Elise has travelled extensively and seems very tactful, she is now (I trust) adjusting the elastic girdle her sister finally ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell

... avail is it for any gentleman of elegant leisure to leave his comfortable fireside? We tourists who are ambitious to see the world in an easy way need but sit in our cushioned chair, cosily smoking our cigar, while some enterprising lady puts a girdle round about the earth; for we may depend upon it she will reappear ere leviathan can swim a league, and present us with a bouquet of wonderful experiences, neatly pressed between the pages of an entertaining volume. The icebergs of the Arctic, ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... Armenians in long robes and a sort of miter on their heads; Jews, known by their conical caps; rich Chinese in their traditional costume, a very wide blue, violet, or black robe; Turks, wearing the national turban; Hindoos, with square caps, and a simple string for a girdle, some of whom, hold in their hands all the traffic of Central Asia; and, lastly, Tartars, wearing boots, ornamented with many-colored braid, and the breast a mass of embroidery. All these merchants had been ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne

... a string about her waist for a girdle, stuck the whip into it, and began to march ...
— Dotty Dimple At Home • Sophie May

... form the back part of the hut, which, when completed, formed by no means a contemptible shelter. Catharine then cut fern and deer grass with Louis's couteau-de-chasse, which he always carried in a sheath at his girdle, and spread two beds, one, parted off by dry boughs and bark, for herself in the interior of the wigwam, and one for her brother and cousin nearer the entrance. When all was finished to her satisfaction, she called the two boys, and, according ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill

... have come for you. And see what I have got for you." And there before him stood little Jeanne—but Jeanne as he had never seen her before. She seemed all glistening and shining—her dress was of some kind of sparkling white, and round her waist was a lovely silver girdle—her sleeves too were looped up with silver bands, and, prettiest of all, two snow-white wings were fastened to her shoulders. She looked like a fairy queen, or like a silvery bird turned into a little girl. And in her hand she held another pair of ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth

... which rose on the left, opposite the library. A woman was descending, a woman only an inch or two shorter than herself and no less stately, with ashen blonde hair coiled low on her graceful neck and wearing a loose gown of pale green crepe with a silver girdle. ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... her as the Algerine conquest. Midway in the Pacific is the island of Tahita or Otaheite,—as fair a gem as the sun ever looked down upon. The soft and balmy air,—the undulating surface, rising to mountains and sinking into deep valleys, luxuriant with tropical verdure,—the distant girdle of coral reefs, which holds the island set in a circlet of tranquil blue waters,—the gentle and indolent temper of the natives,—have all conspired to throw an air of romance around the very name Otaheite. The Christian world is bound to it by another tie. For thither came Protestant ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various

... Signal, Mr. Tickletext, with his Cloke ty'd about him, a great Inkhorn ty'd at his Girdle and a great folio under his Arm, Petro ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn

... like her, in happy play caressing Thee, my dolorous heart awhile deliver! 10 . . . . . . . . I would joy, as of old the maid rejoiced Racing fleetly, the golden apple eyeing, Late-won loosener of the wary girdle. ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus

... other a proud-looking young woman. The old man wore a lambskin mantle, on his head he carried a tall pointed cap, also of lambs' wool, drawn down over his eyebrows, his body was carelessly girdled with a golden girdle. His rich grey locks were plaited into two thick pig-tails which reached down to his broad shoulders, and his snow-white moustache hung down from his mouth like two seamew's wings. A coarse sack lay in front of him across ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai

... in full military dress, and from their tombs much of the little knowledge which we possess as to their habits is derived. Thence have been taken their swords, a yard long, with ornamental hilt and double-cutting edge, often covered by runic inscriptions; their small girdle knives; their long spears; and their round, leather-faced, wooden shields. The jewellery is of gold, enriched with coloured enamel, pearl, or sliced garnet. Buckles, rings, bracelets, hairpins, necklaces, scissors, ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen

... the Caliph had scarcely breakfasted when the Grand Vizier appeared to accompany him upon his walk, as he had commanded him. The Caliph placed the box with the magic powder in his girdle, and, having directed his train to remain behind, he set out alone with his Grand Vizier. They went through the spacious gardens of the Caliph, and looked around, but in vain, for some living thing, that they might try their trick. The Vizier at length proposed that they should go ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various

... her metal mirror while the maid made the tea, smoothed a pretended stray hair, powdered her neck slightly, drew her robe more tightly around her waist, adjusted her girdle, which did not need any adjusting, and then, taking up the tray, containing a tiny tea-pot, a half dozen upturned cups, and as many brass sockets for them, hastened into the front room, bowed with her face on her hands to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various

... We were all assembled in the great hall. The Wali entered, accompanied by the women of the family; the bride advanced, weeping bitterly, and knelt and kissed her father's feet. The poor man, with emotion, raised her and clasped a girdle of diamonds round her waist, which was before ungirdled; it was part of her dower. No one could unclasp it but her husband, and this concluded the ceremony. Shortly afterwards the bride was borne in procession ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins

... beheld they the scabbard, it seemed to be of a serpent's skin, and thereon were letters of gold and silver. And the girdle was but poorly to come to, and not able to sustain such a rich sword. And the letters said: He which shall wield me ought to be more harder than any other, if he bear me as truly as me ought to be borne. For the body of him which I ought to hang by, he shall ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed

... listen to the good and faithful teachings of the Bible, but the sermon was never delivered or listened to. Hasty preparations were made everywhere. The loyal wives soon had the husband's clothes in the homemade knapsack; the mother buckled on the girdle of her son, while the gray haired father was burning with impatience, only sorrowing that he, too, could not go. Never before in the history of the world, not even in Carthage or Sparta, was there ever such a spontaneous outburst of patriotic feeling; ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... charmingly represented a lover wishing that he were a necklace of his beloved, or her girdle, or her earring; but that is not a cosmic emotion at all. Indeed, the idea of Tennyson's pretty song was taken from old French and English love songs of the peasants—popular ballads. But in this beautiful sonnet ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn

... behind. The Indian had scarcely left the woods, and the pirate the shore near his home. His grandfather had seen his neighbor lying tomahawked at his door-sill, and his father had helped to chase beyond the mountains the whooping savages that carried the scalps of his friends at their girdle. The year his brother was born, John Maynard's ship had sailed up the James River with the bloody head of ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various

... But the same cannot be as truly said of the Armoured Horsemen above. Vigorous as they are, they are not in the right place. They clutter up the terrace on which they stand. The globe on the pinnacle, with its band, signifies that now a girdle has ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber

... her with my girdle yesterday; she's not half a yard about the waist, but so taper a shape did I never see; but when I had her in my arms, Lord, thought I,—and by my troth I could not forbear sighing,—If prince Troilus had her at this ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... end of October; the sky a neutral tint of ashy gray; a bitter northeast wind tearing down the yellow leaves from the old elms that girdle the school-close of ——; a foul, clinging paste of mud and trampled grass-blades under foot, that chilled you to the marrow; a mob of two hundred lower boys, vicious with cold and the enforcement of keeping ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence

... pearls on golden strings, With many a gem for neck and limb The son of Raghu honoured him. Then Rama, at his wife's request, The wise Suyajna thus addressed: "Accept a necklace too to deck With golden strings thy spouse's neck. And Sita here, my friend, were glad A girdle to her gift to add. And many a bracelet wrought with care, And many an armlet rich and rare, My wife to thine is fain to give, Departing in the wood to live. A bed by skilful workmen made, With gold and ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... the man that told him, And, behold, thou sawest him, and why didst thou not smite him there to the ground? and I would have given thee ten shekels of silver, and a girdle. ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various

... The islands are also believed to be the Lanja balus or Lankha balus of the old Arab navigators: "These Islands support a numerous population. Both men and women go naked, only the women wear a girdle of the leaves of trees. When a ship passes near, the men come out in boats of various sizes and barter ambergris and coco-nuts for iron," a description which has applied accurately for many centuries. [Ibn Khordadhbeh says (De Goeje's transl., p. 45) that the ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... they an answer back to send, But speed their fleeing mid the brake, and trust them to the night; The horsemen cast themselves before each crossway known aright, And every outgoing there is with guard they girdle round. 379 Rough was the wood; a thicket-place where black holm-oaks abound, And with the tanglement of thorns choked up on every side, The road but glimmering faintly out from where the foot-tracks hide. The blackness of overhanging boughs and heavy battle-prey Hinder Euryalus, and fear beguiles ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil

... the surplice and alb signify innocence; the cord that serves as a girdle is an emblem of chastity and modesty; the amice, of purity of heart and body—the helmet of salvation mentioned by Saint Paul. The maniple, of good works, vigilance, and the tears and sweat poured out by the priest to win and save souls; the stole, of obedience, the clothing on of immortality ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... in addition to disinheriting her son in favor of her daughter, was held responsible by her contemporaries for setting the fashion in wasteful and absurd extravagance in dress. The ladies wore the houppelande, the cotte hardie, tight around the girdle, and looped up their sleeves excessivement to show this cotte hardie; they also had openings in the surcoat to show the girdle. These openings the preachers called "windows of hell." "They ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton

... SWEET. Fucus saccharatus.—This grows upon rocks and stones by the sea-shore. It consists of a long single leaf, having a short roundish foot-stalk, the leaf representing a belt or girdle. This is collected and eaten the same as laver, as are ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury

... supply, and made the shocking discovery that we have only sheets enough to change the children's beds every two weeks, which, it appears, is our shiftless custom. While I was still in the midst of my household gear, with a bunch of keys at my girdle, looking like the chatelaine of a medieval chateau, who should ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster

... and Curly hurried off to get out their boat. They met the miller in an awful rage; for the sudden onset of twice the quantity of water on his overshot wheel, had set his machinery off as if it had been bewitched, and one old stone, which had lost its iron girdle, had flown in pieces, to the frightful danger of the miller and ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... able, lady, with this frugality of speech, to give the manifold but necessary instructions, for that bodice, these sleeves, those skirts, this cut, that stitch, this embroidery, that lace, this wire, those knots, that ruff, those roses, this girdle, that fanne, the t'other scarf, these gloves? ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson

... bid earth's pomps and pride adieu, Then is the goal of my ambition won; And the rough tide of the tempestuous world May dash and rave around these firm-set hills! No wandering wishes more have I to send Forth to the busy scene that stirs beyond. Then may these rocks, that girdle us, extend Their giant walls impenetrably round, And this sequestered happy vale alone Look up to heaven, and be ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller

... he was forced to forego his vengeance until his return. But this was destined to be his last voyage. While at Rio Janeiro he became engaged in a fracas with the keeper of a low grogshop, when the latter, who was a desperate ruffian, snatched a knife from his girdle, and drove it into the heart of the unhappy captain, who fell back on the floor and expired without a groan. Thus terminated a misguided and ill-spent life. I should have been glad to report Ben Haley's reformation instead of his death, but for the sake of Robert, ...
— Brave and Bold • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... if she were now at last standing before the beautiful garments of which she had heard so much. With a secret joy she reflected what she should take back with her to Bacharach, and which of her two little cousins, Posy and Birdy, would prefer that blue silk girdle, and whether the green stockings would suit little Gottschalk. But all at once it flashed on her, "Ah, Lord! they are all grown up now, and yesterday they were slain!" She shuddered, and the pictures of the previous night filled her soul with all their horror again. But the gold-embroidered ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... Abbon the poet to the Parisians, written about the year 890, wherein hen observes: "An agraffe (a clasp) of gold fastens the upper part of your dress; to keep off the cold you cover yourselves with the purple of Tyre, you will have no other cloak than a chlamyde embroidered with gold, your girdle must be ornamented with precious stones, and gold must sparkle even upon your shoes, and on the cane which you carry. O France! if you do not abandon such luxurious extravagance, you will lose your courage ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve

... and with regular features; their hair was shorn, and surmounted with an oval ring attached to the scalp, and the lobe of their left ears was perforated with such a large hole, that it contained a small gourd, which was used as a snuff-box. Their dress was a girdle of strips of catskins, and they each carried two javelins and a ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat

... their hands, passed by towards the church. They were singing a solemn psalm. At the same moment, a smart servant girl, with a black straw hat, set coquettishly on her flaxen hair, and a large silver spoon stuck in her girdle, came out of the tavern, and asked Flemming what he would please to ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... we sit And watch these children? Phyllis, bid them play, And let them heed us no more than the trees That girdle this green lawn with whispering beauty. [The children play and sing at their games, till at a convenient moment the LADY FLORA holds up ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt

... sponsor for it yet once more." Not long afterwards she was sent for to become sponsor, and was conducted into the lake, where she found the toad now in guise of a woman. After the ceremony was over, the lake-woman rewarded her with a bushel of straw, and sent by her hand a girdle for her mistress. On the way home the girl tried the girdle on a tree to see how it would look, and in a moment the tree was torn into a thousand pieces. This was the punishment devised by the lake-woman for ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland

... fixed for their ransom was 3,000 ducats. This the Pope paid, and on December 1 they were released. Alexander met them outside Rome, attired like a layman in a black jerkin trimmed with gold brocade, and fastened round his waist by a Spanish girdle, from which hung his dagger. Lodovico Sforza, when he heard what had happened, remarked that it was weak to release these ladies, who were 'the very eyes and heart' of his Holiness, for so small a ransom—if 50,000 ducats had ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... Leonardo recalls the studio of Verrocchio, in the love of beautiful toys, such as the vessel of water for a mirror, and lovely needle-work about the implicated hands in the Modesty and Vanity, and of reliefs, like those cameos which in the Virgin of the Balances hang all round the girdle of Saint Michael, and of bright variegated stones, such as the agates in the Saint Anne, and in a hieratic preciseness and grace, as of a sanctuary swept and [103] garnished. Amid all the cunning and intricacy of his Lombard ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater



Words linked to "Girdle" :   plant, cummerbund, pelvic girdle, border, ring, incise, plant life, foundation, skeletal structure, band, Venus's girdle, hip, flora, pelvic arch, pelvis, foundation garment, environ, skirt, surround



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