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Gird   Listen
verb
Gird  v. t.  
1.
To strike; to smite. (Obs.) "To slay him and to girden off his head."
2.
To sneer at; to mock; to gibe. "Being moved, he will not spare to gird the gods."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Gird" Quotes from Famous Books



... seek we; 'tis thy hard behest, Maecenas. Without thee no lofty task My mind essays. Up! break the sluggish bonds Of tarriance; with loud din Cithaeron calls, Steed-taming Epidaurus, and thy hounds, Taygete; and hark! the assenting groves With peal on peal reverberate the roar. Yet must I gird me to rehearse ere long The fiery fights of Caesar, speed his name Through ages, countless as to Caesar's self From the first birth-dawn of Tithonus old. If eager for the prized Olympian palm One breed the horse, or bullock strong to plough, Be his prime care a shapely ...
— The Georgics • Virgil

... difference is in the finenes of the cloth, which is cloth of Bombast one finer then another, and they weare their apparell in this wise: First a white Bombast cloth which serueth for a shirt, then they gird another painted bombast cloth of foureteene brases, which they binde vp betwixt their legges, and on their heads they weare a small tock of three braces, made in guize of a myter, and some goe without tocks, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt

... showed itself in any word or look of yours at that time. I know why Grace, although so true a friend to me, was hard to win to be my wife. And knowing it, my own! I know the priceless value of the heart I gird within my arms, and thank ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens

... roller, roller that surges from Kona, Makes loin-cloth fit for a lord; Far-reaching swell, my malo streams in the wind; Shape the crescent malo to the loins— 5 The loin-cloth the sea, cloth for king's girding. Stand, gird ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson

... both young and old, gird on the sword, greedier for prey than the beasts of the forest; they all cry for liberty, the wise and the boors; the fury of the battle rages like the billows of ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz

... will bear you across the seas, and over hill and dale like a bird, as they bear me all day long. The sandals themselves will guide you on the road, for they are divine and cannot stray, and this sword itself will kill her, for it is divine and needs no second stroke. Arise and gird them on, and ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various

... Pepperell, who was pretty well known and liked among the people. As to military skill, he had no more of it than his neighbors. But, as the governor urged him very pressingly, Mr. Pepperell consented to shut up his ledger, gird on a sword, and assume ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... attained by a surrender to Necessity, or any compact with Delusion—a seeming blessing, such as years and dispiritment will of themselves bring to most men, and which is indeed no blessing, since ever-continued battle is better than captivity. Many gird on the harness, few bear it warrior-like, still fewer put it off with triumph. Euphorion still asserts, "To die in strife is the end ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol

... ragged bleeding feet—of the great thinkers of the ages who have found the path of truth through blood and tears and then walked its way to the stake, to the block and the gallows? Come with me into the big world of the past—read, study, think, and gird yourself with power! We're just entering on the struggle that means life or death to our Republic. I believe as I believe in God, that we have set a beacon light on the shores of the world that will guide the human race to its mightiest achievements—unless we ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon

... sometimes became popular, and entirely banished the others. This was amusingly the case, for instance, with one phrase in the popular camp-song of "Marching Along," which was entirely new to them until our quartermaster taught it to them, at my request. The words, "Gird on the armor," were to them a stumbling-block, and no wonder, until some ingenious ear substituted, "Guide on de army," which was at once accepted, ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... great numbers. Besides, they have a robe of the same fur, in the form of a cloak, which they wear in the Irish or Egyptian style, with sleeves which are attached with a string behind. This is the way they are dressed in winter, as is seen in figure D. When they go into the fields, they gird up their robe about the body; but when in the village, they leave off their sleeves and do not gird themselves. The Milan trimmings for decorating their garments are made of glue and the scrapings of the before-mentioned ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain V3 • Samuel de Champlain

... they make the yoke-beasts ready, and dight the wains for the way, And the maidens gather together, and their bodies they array, And gird the laps of the linen, and do on the dark-blue gear, And bind with the leaves of summer the wandering of their hair: Then they drive by dale and acre, o'er heath and holt they wend, Till they come to the land of the waters, ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris

... you will find there." And when she had brought them, he opened them, and took from them three cords, and gave one to each of his daughters. Now these cords were exceeding beautiful, of many colours, and sending forth sparks of light as it had been rays of the sun; and he said to his daughters, "Gird them about you, and keep them all the days of ...
— Old Testament Legends - being stories out of some of the less-known apochryphal - books of the old testament • M. R. James

... either in war or peace.[50] Perhaps the best remaining example is Maiden[51] Castle, which dominates Dorchester, being at once the largest and the most untouched by later ages. Here three huge concentric ramparts, nearly three miles in circuit, gird in a space of about fifty acres on a gentle swell of the chalk ridge above the modern town by the river. A single tortuous entrance, defended by an outwork, gives access to the levelled interior. All, save the oaken palisades which once topped each round of the ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare

... here, that we shall be free, that we shall be able to reach England. Oh, yes, let us hope that Toulan's fine and bold plan will succeed, and then it may one day be that the son of my dear brother, grown to be a young man, may put the helmet on his head, gird himself with the sword, reconquer the throne of his fathers, and take possession of it as King Louis XVII. Therefore ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach

... that the ass can kick, And that when kicking, asses never bray, So gird your armor on and lop each head Who hath at your dilemma dared ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)

... thy neighbour's house, she knocks upon thy door, Bjoern. Gudruda, thy sister, is my betrothed, and thou art a party to this feud," said Eric. "Therefore it becomes thee better to hold her honour and thy own against this Northlander, than to gird at me for that in which I ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard

... Harold, "but its fruits will be other than you anticipate. The North will be awakened, but only to gird up its loins and put forth its giant strength. The shame of that one defeat will be worth to us hereafter a hundred victories. The North has been smitten in its sleep; it will arouse from its lethargy like a lion awakening under the smart of the hunter's spear. ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood

... gentility, it must be borne in mind, that the mug was a Dutch mug, and consequently a small one (as indeed are all things Dutch, from clocks to cheeses); and also that, small as it was, he never more than half filled it, except once or twice in the course of an evening, when he would gird up his loins, as it were, with a brimmer to help him over some passage in his story of unusual ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady

... dismay, And blacke Laestrigones, a people stout; Then greedie Scilla, under whom there bay Manie great bandogs, which her gird about; 540 Then doo the AEtnean Cyclops him affray, And deep Charybdis gulphing in and out; Lastly the squalid lakes of Tartarie, And griesly feends of ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser

... she meekly saith— "Thy Father's mercies never come too late; Gird thee with patient strength and trusting faith, ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur

... shared by all my companions, some of whom endured the most frightful tortures. Dow- las and the boatswain especially, who were naturally large eaters, uttered involuntary cries of agony, and were obliged to gird themselves tightly with ropes to subdue the excru- ciating pain that was gnawing ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne

... darkness? Shall we not rather gird up our strength to encounter it, that we too from our side may break the passage for the light beyond? He who fights with the dark shall know the gentleness that makes man great—the dawning countenance of the God of hope. ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... never in an ark. And there is the "reader upon the sofa,"—church-member he may be,—who tosses aside "Vanity Fair" with the reflection that a gossiping of London snobs is human life, and that the best thing to be done is to pay pew-rates and lie still and gird at it. Which of these two, think you, is the modern ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... terrors; Wait not for any man's word; Patiently, each in his place, Gird up your loins to the race; Following the print of her pace, Purged of desires and of errors, March to ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... gird on your sword, run after adventures, and leave as in old times a little of your fat on ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... much against his will, to die in peace. "I am ashamed," he said, "after so many battles, to die like a cow; case me in my armor, gird on my sword, put on my helmet, give me my shield and battle-axe, lift me to my feet, that I may die ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... a long expedition on foot. But of one thing I was sure, we must halt till we got food. A high wind was blowing and promised some respite to the Moose from the little enemy that sings except when he stings, so I invited Bezkya to gird up his loins and ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton

... to gird. Both gerd and gard are common terminations of female names, as Hildigard, ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson

... with a gird he would his course rebate, Straite would he take him to a statlie gate; Plaie while him list, and thrust he neare so hard, Poore pacient Grissill lyeth at hir ...
— The Choise of Valentines - Or the Merie Ballad of Nash His Dildo • Thomas Nash

... or touched the heads of the said idols with cords, wherewith they bound themselves about their shirts, or next their skins. 59. That at their reception, the aforesaid little cords, or others of the same length, were delivered to each of the brothers. 61. That it was enjoined them to gird themselves with the said little cords, as before mentioned, and continually to wear them. 62. That the brethren of the Order were generally received in that manner. 63. That they did these things out of devotion. 64. That they did them everywhere. 65. That the greater part did. 66. ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... estimates, the root of the evil lying concealed under the snugly-cushioned fauteuils of cabinet ministers and their pampered placeholders and hunters—not, beneath the straight-backed horsehair chairs of miserable clerks. It is unmanly thus for giants to gird ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson

... by means of these experiments Schoenberg will gird himself for a new period of creativity just as once indubitably by the aid of experiments which he did not publish he girded himself for the period represented by the D-minor Quartet. It may be that after the cloud of the war ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld

... itineraires. I can stand pot-holes, but the remains of a railway platform which might have been brought from one of what we know as 'the stricken areas,' laid, like linoleum, upon a foot of brickdust, tend to make you gird at Life. Incidentally, is this fast enough for you? Or are ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates

... Phil, "I must prop my eyelids open long enough to write you. I've neglected you shamefully this summer, honey, but all my other correspondents have been neglected, too. I have a huge pile of letters to answer, so I must gird up the loins of my mind and hoe in. Excuse my mixed metaphors. I'm fearfully sleepy. Last night Cousin Emily and I were calling at a neighbor's. There were several other callers there, and as soon ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... Shalmaneser replaced Kati, the King of Kui, by his brother Kirri, and made of his dominions a kind of buffer state between his own territory and that of Pamphylia and Lycaonia. He had now occupied the throne for a quarter of a century, not a year of which had elapsed without seeing the monarch gird on his armour and lead his soldiers in person towards one or other points of the horizon. He was at length weary of such perpetual warfare, and advancing age perchance prevented him from leading his troops with that dash and vigour which are necessary to success; however this might be, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... quoth Slawkenbergius, any thing—or rather what was what—and could perceive that the point of long noses had been too loosely handled by all who had gone before;—have I Slawkenbergius, felt a strong impulse, with a mighty and unresistible call within me, to gird ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne

... wander round the island all day, looking down from the summit of the great cliffs which gird it round, and watching the long green waves as they came booming in and burst in a shower of ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... because her baby is taken with the croup. I have not a doubt of it. I never knew a baby yet that did not go and have the croup, or the colic, or the cholera infantum, just when it was imperatively necessary that it should not have them. But there is no help for it. I shudder and bravely gird myself for the work. I tug at the heavy, bulky, unwieldy carpets, and am covered with dust and abomination. I think carpets are the most untidy, unwholesome nuisances in the whole world. It is impossible to be clean with them under your ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... will to choose; for I wish to go forth from your empire, and I shall go to offer my service to the king who reigns over Britain, that he may dub me knight. Never, indeed, on any day as long as I live shall I wear visor on my face or helm on my head, I warrant you, till King Arthur gird on my sword if he deign to do it; for I will receive arms of no other." The emperor without more ado replies: "Fair son, in God's name, say not so. This land and mighty are diverse and contrary. And that man is a slave. Constantinople is wholly yours. You must not hold me a ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes

... however, is not our society. We have no objection to their carrying on the business of human beings, so long as they allow us an uninterrupted trading of, say, a hundred miles. Within that charmed and charming circle they should not set foot, and we are quite willing in addition, for them, to gird themselves about with the circumference of another thousand. It is not that they are disagreeable or stupid, or in any way obviously objectionable. Bores are more frequently clever than dull, and the only all-round definition of a bore is—The Person We Don't Want. Few people are ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne

... solemn feast King Rudolf sate, The day that saw the hero crown'd! Bohemia and thy Palgrave, Rhine, Give this the feast, and that the wine; The Arch Electoral Seven, Like choral stars around the sun, Gird him whose hand a world has won, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various

... to take water from my camels, but I resisted, threatening to report them to the Bashaw. After a scuffle with my negro servant and camel-driver, in which affair Said drew out manfully from the scabbard the old rusty sword which I presented to him on leaving Tripoli—to gird round him as a warrior badge—they desisted and retreated. The sub-officer of the escort came up to me afterwards, and begged that I would say nothing about the business. I gave him a suck of brandy-and-water, and we were mighty good friends all the way. Our ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... when he shall return from the marriage feast; that, when he cometh and knocketh, they may straightway open unto him. 37 Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them sit down to meat, and shall come and serve them. 38 And if he shall come in the second watch, and if in the third, and find them so, blessed are those servants. 39 But know this, that if ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman

... Figaro, in a remarkable article, says that, willingly or forcibly, America must belong to the Americans. The New World must gird up its loins and be ready to fulfill its mission. And this must be done by force when persuasion is not sufficient. And when the Americans shall have rejoined Europe in some portion of Asia, concludes the Figaro, and ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall

... sighed and Mrs. Blythe clasped her hands for a moment. Then Susan said briskly, "Well, we must just gird up our loins and pitch in. Business as usual is England's motto, they tell me, Mrs. Dr. dear, and I have taken it for mine, not thinking I could easily find a better. I shall make the same kind of pudding ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... clapped the once-king on the shoulder, and said: "Hearken, lord, and delay no longer, but gird up thy gown, since here is no mare's son to help thee: for fair is to-day that lies before us, with many a new fair day ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris

... miles no one could move in daylight without being seen by the enemy, and there was practically no position to put our field guns forward of High Wood. The enemy's front line consisted of two trenches—Gird Line and Gird Support—with a forward trench on the top of the ridge, called on the left 'Butte Trench' on the right 'Hook Sap.' Our front line Snag Trench and Maxwell Trench lay this side the ridge and about two hundred yards away from the ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley

... chains: and the keepers before the door kept the prison. And, behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him, and a light shined in the prison: and he smote Peter on the side, and raised him up, saying, Arise up quickly. And his chains fell off from his hands. And the angel said unto him, Gird thyself, and bind on thy sandals: And so he did. And he saith unto him, Cast thy garment about thee, and follow me. And he went out, and followed him; and wist not that it was true which was done by the angel but thought he saw a vision. When they were past ...
— The Dore Gallery of Bible Illustrations, Complete • Anonymous

... Wes is poor as money goes, But rich in love and charity; His heart goes out in sympathy To barefoot boy with bleeding toes, And girls in torn and tattered clothes; And with his heart goes Wes's coin, To heal the wound and gird the loin. ...
— The Loom of Life • Cotton Noe

... did they live: thus did they love, Repeating only joyes above, And angels were but with cloaths on, Which they would put off cheerfully, To bathe them in the Galaxie, Then gird them with ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace

... open the gate and crunch across the pebbles to the door. To the nearer eye there is a look of "dog" about the place. Or maybe you are hot and thirsty, and there is a well at the side of the house. Is it better to gird yourself to danger or to put off your thirst until the crossroads where ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks

... guess, is already in the Nunnery, and can only give her orisons. Poor Graille and Sisterhood, they have never known a Father: such is the hard bargain Grandeur must make. Scarcely at the Debotter (when Royalty took off its boots) could they snatch up their 'enormous hoops, gird the long train round their waists, huddle on their black cloaks of taffeta up to the very chin;' and so, in fit appearance of full dress, 'every evening at six,' walk majestically in; receive their royal kiss on the ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... as he was going. As he journeyed to Babington all this was clear to him; and it was clear to him also that, from his first entrance into the house, he must put on an air of settled purpose, he must gird up his loins seriously, he must let it be understood that he was not as he used to be, ready for worldly lectures from his aunt, or for romping with his female cousins, or for rats, or rabbits, or partridges, with the male members of the family. The cares of the world must be seen to sit ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope

... frightfulness, puts on its true beauty, and becomes at once the evening star of memory and the morning star of hope, the Hesper of the sinking flesh, the Phosphor of the rising soul. Let the night come, then: it shall be welcome. And, as we gird our loins to enter the ancient mystery, we will exclaim, with vanishing voice, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... His unjust accusations and the public shame he was so undeservedly bringing upon her broke her heart. I assured her that she would be vindicated, that Armstrong would be on his knees to her at the trial's end. Your father tried to infuse her with courage, to gird her for the coming struggle to defend her own good name, but it was all of no use. She was too broken in spirit. Life held nothing more for her. On the night before the case was to have been ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander

... meet with trials, And know not what to do; Just cast the care on Jesus, And He will fight for you. Gird on the heavenly armor Of faith, and hope, and love; And when the conflict's ended, You'll reign with ...
— Morning Bells • Frances Ridley Havergal

... and his shoulders, how broad, and his arms, how mighty. And they said one to another, "There will be little of Irus left, so stalwart seems this beggar man." But as for Irus himself, he would have slunk out of sight, but they that were set to gird him compelled him ...
— The Story Of The Odyssey • The Rev. Alfred J. Church

... when through the night beneath this tree In pious adoration I had sat, Resisting sleep, the Holy One appeared, Bearing a sword and banner, otherwise Clad like a shepherdess, and thus she spake: "'Tis I; arise, Johanna! leave thy flock, The Lord appoints thee to another task! Receive this banner! Gird thee with this sword! Therewith exterminate my people's foes; Conduct to Rheims thy royal master's son, And crown him with the kingly diadem!" And I made answer: "How may I presume To undertake such deeds, a tender maid, Unpractised in the dreadful art of war!" And she replied: "A ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... arrival in France he was to order the Marshals on whom he could best rely to defend to the utmost the entrances to the French territory and the approaches to Paris, by pivoting on the triple line of fortresses which gird the north and east of France. Davoust was 'in petto' singled out for the defence of Paris. He, was to arm the inhabitants of the suburbs, and to have, besides, 20,000 men of the National Guard at his disposal. Napoleon, not being aware of the situation of the Allies, never supposed that they ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... love; fused States and lives! shine stars on God's own Blue! Love's crimson current gird them close! ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... Hoping,—as who of hope shall be forbidden?— Striving,—as who hath not the right to strive?— For flaunted gain through perils shrewdly hidden! Oh, labourers hard in Industry's huge hive, What wonder, if, ill-paid and tired, you hasten To follow the loud bauble and the lure, Or gird at those who your wild hopes would chasten, Or guide you on a pathway more secure! And yet beware! No oriflamme of battle Is that false radiance round yon impish brow. The jester's bladder-bauble, with its rattle Of prisoned peas, is not the tow-row-row Of Labour's true reveille. Bonnet ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 19, 1890 • Various

... goal distant, and troubled the road, And the way long? And heavy your load? Then gird up your courage, and say 'I am strong,' ...
— Poems of Experience • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... From gay Whitehall to gloomy Temple Bar—" (Where—had you slipt, that head were bleaching now! And that same rabble, splitting for a hedge, Had joined their rows to cheer the active headsman; Perchance, in mockery, they'd gird the skull With a hop-leaf crown! Bitter the brewing, Noll!) Are crowns the end-all of ambition? Remember Charles Stuart! and that they who make can break! This same Whitehall may black its front with crape, And this ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo

... temple of the God of grace, From the loud wind to me a hiding-place! Thee gird broad lands with genial motions rife, But in thee dwells, high-throned, the Life of life Thy test no stagnant moat half-filled with mud, But living waters witnessing in flood! Thy priestess, beauty-clad, and gospel-shod, ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald

... us gird ourselves anew for the struggle that is before us, to fight the enemies of Protestant Christianity, entrenched as they are in our Government, the Indian ring, the cattle kings, the land grabbers and the thousands whose selfish interest it is to keep the Indian ignorant. ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 42, No. 12, December, 1888 • Various

... used to confine the Alb at the waist, is emblematic of the work of the Lord, to perform which the sacred ministers gird up, as it were, their loins. The girdle, and also the stole and maniple are intended to represent the cords and fetters with which the officers bound ...
— The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia • William James Miller

... none of them the mercy of a broken heart. Therefore, I say, take heed; every scratch with a pin, every prick with a thorn, nay, every blow that God giveth with his Word upon the heart of sinners, doth not therefore break them. God gave Ahab such a blow that he made him stoop, fast, humble himself, gird himself with and lie in sackcloth, which was a great matter for a king, and go softly, and yet he never had a broken heart (1 Kings 21:27,29). What shall I say? Pharaoh and Saul confessed their sins, Judas ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... that proof be written. In fire and in blood do we trace the record throughout nature. In fire and in blood does it cross our own experience. Sufferer, faint not through terror of this burning evidence. Tired wayfarer, gird up thy loins; look upward, march onward. Pilgrims and brother mourners, join in friendly company. Dark through the wilderness of this world stretches the way for most of us: equal and steady be our tread; be our cross our banner. For staff we have ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... may not dine upon the bird That fills our home with minstrelsy; The living vine may never gird Too firm and close the living tree, Without sad ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland

... Now gird thee well for courage, My knight of twenty year, Against the marching morrows That fill the ...
— Songs from Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey

... and sorrow shall disappear. Peace and love shall reign supreme. The dream of poets, the lesson of priest and prophet, the inspiration of the great musician, is confirmed in the light of modern knowledge; and as we gird ourselves up for the work of life, we may look forward to the time when in the truest sense the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdom of Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever, king of kings and ...
— The Destiny of Man - Viewed in the Light of His Origin • John Fiske

... thou wilt have, despite the sin of it. Blessed are the stolid, and thrice cursed he who hath imagination,—for that imagination shall devour him. And in thy life a sin shall be presented unto thee with a great longing. God, who is in heaven, gird thee for that struggle, my son, for it will surely come. That it may be said of you, "Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver, I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction." Seven days shalt thou wrestle with thy soul; seven nights ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... guard all the coasts of the shore; our troops, as here, surround every pass. Spies, night and day, keep watch. The Welch moels (or beacon-rocks) are manned by our warders. And, were the Welch King to descend, signals would blaze from post to post, and gird him with fire and sword. From land to land, from hill to hill, from Hereford to Caerleon, from Caerleon to Milford, from Milford to Snowdon, through Snowdon to yonder fort, built, they say, by the ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... to pardon his son Khuzru and all who had supported Khuzru. He was then brought into the presence of Akbar. The old Padishah was past all speech. He made a sign with his hand that Selim should take the imperial diadem and gird on the imperial sword. Selim obeyed. He prostrated himself upon the ground before the couch of his dying father; he touched the ground with his head. He then left the chamber. A few hours had passed away and Akbar was dead. He died ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... to tremble at the sight and push against thee, for the desire unto life is bold. Also I may do myself an injury and make myself unfit to be sacrificed. I adjure thee, therefore, my father, make haste, execute the will of thy Creator, delay not. Turn up thy garment, gird thy loins, and after that thou hast slaughtered me, burn me unto fine ashes. Then gather the ashes, and bring them to Sarah, my mother, and place them in a casket in her chamber. At all hours, whenever she enters her chamber, ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... populace. How has he portrayed them? In one play alone has he given up the whole stage to them, and it is said that the "Merry Wives of Windsor" was only written at the request of Queen Elizabeth, who wished to see Sir John Falstaff in love. It is from beginning to end one prolonged "gird at citizens," and we can hardly wonder that they felt a grievance against the dramatic profession. In the other plays of Shakespeare the humbler classes appear for the main part only occasionally and incidentally. His opinion of ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy

... clean touch down for Chester! First blood had after all come to the visitors. The Marshall players began to look more serious. After all, then, it was not destined to be such a "soft snap" as some of them had made out to believe. They had better gird themselves, and start in to do something on their own account. These Chester fellows could play the game, it seemed, for all there was in it. Visions of possible defeat spurred the locals on to increasing their pressure. ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton

... excellently," added Chilo. "Yes, to break his jaw, besides! That's a good idea, and a deed which befits thee. But rub thy limbs with olive oil to-day, my Hercules, and gird thyself, for know this, you mayst meet a real Cacus. The man who is guarding that girl in whom the worthy Vinicius takes interest, has exceptional strength ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... hated Vincent because he seemed to think there was no one in the North but the Spragues worthy of a moment's consideration. It is in hate as in love—what we seek we find. Every innocent word and sign that passed in the group, in which he did not seek to make himself one, Wesley construed as a gird at him or his family. Constantly on the watch for slights or disparagements, the most thoughtless acts of the two groups were taken by the tormented egotist as in some sense a disparagement to his own good ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... should be no selfish hopes, no selfish cares, to prevent me from concentrating all my energies and thoughts upon the work appointed me to do. I have been wasting my time in idle dreams of earthly enjoyment; I have been rudely awakened. O Lord of hosts, strengthen Thy servant to arise and gird up his spirit to perform fearlessly and faithfully the duties ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker

... contradicted and attacked. We must not content ourselves with a pacification or truce which will permit us with facile weakness to open all the pores of our intelligence to ideas contrary to our conviction. It is necessary on the contrary to gird ourselves, to intrench ourselves. There is to-day, between us and many of our contemporaries, an irreconcilable disagreement that must be faced, a great combat in which parts must be taken. As far as I can see this is what it is. In a word, are subjection ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... result of this he was for the first time late at breakfast The presider over the box-office had ascertained that Peter had spent the night out, and had concluded he would have a gird or two at him. He failed, however, to carry out his intention. It was not the first time that both he and his companions had decided to "roast" Peter, absent, but had done other wise with Peter, present. He had also decided to say to Peter, "Who's your dandy letter-writer?" But ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford

... let me tighten every cruel sinew, And gird the whole up in unfeeling hardness, That my swollen heart, which bleeds within me tears, May choke itself to stillness. I am as A shivering bather, that, upon the shore, Looking and shrinking from the cold, black waves, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various

... mighty arm of Thy Father, let us now see Thy great power, so that men shall hail Thee their God, and the people may bend their knees unto Thee. Strengthen and guide the fighting arm of Thy believing soldiers, and help them, Thou invincible King of Battles. Gird Thyself up, Thou mighty fighting Hero; gird Thy sword on Thy loins, and smite our enemy hip and thigh. Art Thou not the Lord who directest the wars of the whole world, who breakest the bow, who splinterest the spear, and burnest the chariots with fire? Arouse Thyself, ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes

... and privileges of the people of Scotland,—that she was the grand palladium of the country's liberties,—that while she stood an independent and free institution, the people stood an independent and free nation,—and that bonds to her meant slavery to them. Therefore did he gird on the sword when he saw peril gathering around her. The privileges,—the entire standing of the common people, as given them by the Reformation,—he saw to be in danger: he was "one of themselves;" and he felt and fought as if almost the quarrel had been a personal one, and the question ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller

... chill Sirocco blow, And gird us round with hills of snow, Or else go whistle to the shore, And ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... all your lamps be bright, And trim the golden flame; Gird up your loins, as in his sight, For awful ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams

... business. (He returns as an old woman and is accompanied by a dancing-girl and a flute-girl.) Come, my little wench, bear in mind what I told you on the road and do it well. Come, go past him and gird up your robe. And you, you little dear, play us the air of a ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... Tsar spoke these words to them: "My dear children, take unto you your darts, gird on your well-spanned bows, and go hence in different directions, and in whatsoever courts your arrows fall, ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe

... magic letters That blessing ye brought forth, Behold! it lies in fetters On the soil that gave it birth: But the trumpet must be heard And the charger must be spurr'd; For your father Armin's Sprite Calls down from heaven, that ye Shall gird you for the fight And ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various

... group of men, a class struggle cannot very well be denied by the optimistic Americans who say: "A class struggle is monstrous. Sir, there is no class struggle." The class struggle is here, and the optimistic American had better gird himself for the fray and put a stop to it, rather than sit idly declaiming that what ought not to be is not, and never ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London

... are not, either without or within, very attractive. The auditoriums, to a European, have a somewhat dingy air. Which air is no doubt partly due to the non-existence of a rule in favor of evening dress (never again shall I gird against the rule in Europe!), but it is due also to the oddly inefficient illumination during the entr'actes, and to ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett

... in St. Louis, March 24-29, 1919, when we met to counsel together for the future and to gird on our armor for the "one fight more—the last and the best," we celebrated the Missouri victory, the twenty-seventh State to give Presidential suffrage to women. Mrs. Catt, by resolution of the convention, immediately wrote to the legislators of Tennessee and ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper

... him, "Feed my sheep. Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest; but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou ...
— His Last Week - The Story of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus • William E. Barton

... to the pails long-ranged!" Take comfort, kine! God also made your race! If praise from man surceased, from your broad chests That God would perfect praise, and, when ye died, Resound it from yon rocks that gird the bay: God knoweth all ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere

... power of action fettered by no royalty. Royal wealth which will be really thine own, to do with it as it beseemeth thee. Thou wilt be at the top of an aristocracy in a country where aristocrats need gird themselves with no buckram. All that the world can give will be thine; and yet when we talk of thee religiously, philosophically, or politico-economically, we are wont to declare that thy chances of happiness are no better,—no better, ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... Above peaked gables and flat mansard-roofs Flutter the flags. The avenues are arcaded with them, The narrow alleys are bleached with stripes and stars. For War is declared, And the people gird themselves Silently—sternly— Only the flags make arabesques in the sunshine, Twining the red of blood and the silver of achievement Into a gay, waving pattern Over the ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy

... them in the way I should like. Even these trees have eyes; ay, and tongues too; for was the old man, here, or I, to start one single rod beyond our gaol limits, sarvice would be put on the bail afore we could 'gird up our loins' for a race, and, like as not, four or five rifle bullets would be travelling arter us, carrying so many invitations to curb our impatience. There isn't a gaol in the colony as tight as this we are now in; for I've tried the ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... makes a rosy path, as if the Sacred tread were fresh upon the water. A few more moments, and it sinks, and night comes on, and lights begin to sparkle in the prospect. On the hill-side beyond the shapelessly-diffused town, and in the quiet keeping of the trees that gird the village-steeple, remembrances are cut in stone, planted in common flowers, growing in grass, entwined with lowly brambles around many a mound of earth. In town and village, there are doors and windows closed against the weather, there are flaming logs heaped high, there are joyful faces, ...
— Some Christmas Stories • Charles Dickens

... This girdle from me;—wear it for my sake; Nay, but refuse me not; you little know Its magic power. I had it long ago From Fairyland; and its encircling charm Keeps scathless him who wears it from all harm; No evil thing can touch him. Gird it on, If but to ease my heart ...
— Gawayne And The Green Knight - A Fairy Tale • Charlton Miner Lewis

... a giant of three bodies, invincible, and almost reachest heaven with thy crest, why does this silly sword bind thy thigh? Why doth a broken spear gird thy huge side? Why, perchance, dost thou defend thy stalwart breast with a feeble sword, and forget the likeness of thy bodily stature, trusting in a short dagger, a petty weapon? Soon, soon will I balk thy bold onset, when with blunted blade thou attemptest war. ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... shoes and stockings—these place upon your hands (which are to represent feet); next, tie round your neck a short coloured pinafore, reaching down to your hands (or rather the old dame's feet)—this will represent a gown; now, place your shoed hands upon a table, to see effect; gird the gown with a proportionate apron, the strings of which will bind your arms and body together at the chest; put on a false nose, a pair of spectacles, a lady's frilled night-cap, and a comical conical hat; add a little red cloak, and ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner



Words linked to "Gird" :   forearm, environ, fortify, border, arm, disarm, skirt, girdle, build up, bind, re-arm, hoop, encircle



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