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Girdle   Listen
noun
Girdle  n.  
1.
That which girds, encircles, or incloses; a circumference; a belt; esp., a belt, sash, or article of dress encircling the body usually at the waist; a cestus. " Within the girdle of these walls." "Their breasts girded with golden girdles."
2.
The zodiac; also, the equator. (Poetic) "From the world's girdle to the frozen pole." "That gems the starry girdle of the year."
3.
(Jewelry) The line ofgreatest circumference of a brilliant-cut diamond, at which it is grasped by the setting.
4.
(Mining) A thin bed or stratum of stone.
5.
(Zool.) The clitellus of an earthworm.
Girdle bone (Anat.), the sphenethmoid. See under Sphenethmoid.
Girdle wheel, a spinning wheel.
Sea girdle (Zool.), a ctenophore. See Venus's girdle, under Venus.
Shoulder girdle, Pectoral girdle, and Pelvic girdle. (Anat.) See under Pectoral, and Pelvic.
To have under the girdle, to have bound to one, that is, in subjection.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Girdle" Quotes from Famous Books



... dark face, burned as if she had travelled much under hot suns. Her long black hair is in disorder and flies all about her in the wind. Her dress is in disorder too, and it is fastened around the waist by a girdle of snake skin, with long ends that hang down to the ground. Everything about her looks wild and terrible. She is a woman whom you would not care to meet on a lonely road after dark and on a horse like this. Yet if you looked at her face more closely you would not find anything ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost

... Winchester fined for not putting the king in mind to give a girdle to the Countess of Albemarle.—Robertus de Vallibus debet quinque optimos palafredos, ut rex taceret de uxore Henrici Pinel.—The wife of Hugh do Nevil fined in two hundred hens, that she might lie with, her husband for ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... of Namara's people among the servants now come out of the alcove, and one of them, a story-teller and poet, a last remnant of the bardic order, who had a chair and a platter in Namara's kitchen, drew a French knife out of his girdle and made as though he would strike at Costello, but in a moment a blow had hurled him to the ground, his shoulder sending the cup rolling and ringing again. The click of steel had followed quickly, had not there come a muttering and shouting from the peasants about the door ...
— The Secret Rose • W. B. Yeats

... Abbot’s private chapel, or for the use of the Abbey tenants; but I can scarcely think that either of these suggestions is likely to be true, as such a chapel, so far from the monastic building, and without its protecting girdle, would not have been convenient for the Abbot’s use, and such an elaborately-ornamented structure would scarcely have been erected simply for the monastic churls. Had it been nearer the other buildings, and especially the great Abbey church, we might have thought it had ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter

... public gardens or promenades, and are in place of what was once the fortifications of the city. In the early part of the nineteenth century part of them were taken away and this splendid girdle of plants and ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang

... most interesting object of all was still to come—the real feather cloak, cape, and girdle of the Kamehamehas, not generally to be seen, except at a coronation or christening, but which the Princess Kamakaeha, in her capacity of Mistress of the Robes, had kindly ordered to be put out for my inspection. The cloak, ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey

... new attendant made his appearance. He was a small, active-looking man, of a lightish rusty-red colour. His dress was much as is usually worn at the present day, consisting of loose trousers of coarse brown cloth, fastened round the waist by a girdle, and a woollen shirt of a dark blue colour. His poncho, which served as his outer garment, was of alpaca wool of the same hue as his shirt; and on his head he wore a broad-brimmed hat, while his sandals were of untanned leather, just covering his toes, and secured by a thong round ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston

... this the eyes of the damsel lost their fire and sought the floor; and she plucked at her girdle, and would not look on Deodonato. And they said outside, "It is very still in ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope

... great festa of Prato, when all the nuns walked in procession to see the holy centola, or girdle, which the Madonna had given to St. Thomas. Lucrezia must take care to walk on the outside of the procession, and to watch for a touch upon ...
— Knights of Art - Stories of the Italian Painters • Amy Steedman

... the figures are partly obliterated, it can easily be deciphered that the latter figure wears a garment similar to the kwaca or dark-blue blanket for which Tusayan is still famous, and that this blanket was bound by a girdle, the ends of which hang from the woman's left hip. While the figure of the man is likewise indistinct (the vessel evidently having been long in use), the nature of the act in which he is engaged ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes

... barber's cloth is spread over him. Bathing has begun if the outer coat has been pulled off. A man has commenced to tan if his working apron has been tied around him. A meal begins when the hands are washed or (as some say) when the girdle has been removed. The process of judging has begun when the judges have donned their professional robes, or (as some have it) ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various

... time the Riflemen encountered the Huron, it was upon the war-trail, and full a dozen more scalp-locks hung at his girdle!] ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis

... by a chain of volcanic mountains in a state of greater or less activity, which may perhaps be considered a girdle of safety for the whole world, through which the masses of molten matter in a state of high pressure beneath the crust find a way of escape; and thus the structure of the globe is preserved from even greater ...
— Volcanoes: Past and Present • Edward Hull

... his company, for he is capable of all things, even of drugging you into insensibility, and here," he added, taking a small poniard, of exquisite workmanship, with a gold hilt and scabbard, from his girdle, and giving it to her, "wear this at all times, and if he dare attempt violence, were he thrice a king, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various

... refusing, Titus again said, I will give thee forty groats, and as a pledge take my girdle, which he gave him before he had done speaking, that he might not open his mouth or make ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake

... was a fine ambition; they would have thought Themselves as famous as their Countryman That putt a girdle[25] round about the world, Could they have said, at their returne to England, Unto their Sons, "Looke Boyes; this fruite your father With his adventurous hands ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various

... this a short vest of gold-embroidered crimson, the sudeyree; over this a khaftan of green-striped silk, reaching to the ankles, with wide, long sleeves divided at the wrist, and bound at the waist with a voluminous gaudy shawl of Cashmere for girdle; over this a warm wide-flowing torrent of white drapery, lined with ermine. On my head is the skull-cap, covered by a high crimson cap with deep-blue tassel; and on my feet is a pair of thin yellow-morocco shoes, covered over with ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel

... good stature and upright, but his drapings were so ample that the structure of his frame was not discernible. His eyes were black, bright and young in their alertness, but the beard that rippled over his breast to his girdle was as white as the ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... the residue, and the pipe is filled again and again, until the smoker feels satisfied. The girls that wait on one at the yadoyas and tea-houses carry their tobacco in the capacious sleeve-pockets of their dress, and their pipes sometimes thrust in the sash or girdle, and sometimes stuck in ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... strip of native woollen fabric, woven of undyed wool and so loose of texture that one might thrust a finger through at any point of its scant extent. He bore no weapon save the huge knife swinging at his belt. Fastened to the same girdle was a hide bag or pouch, half full of parched corn, rudely pounded. Expressionless, mute, untiring, the colossal figure strode along, like some primordial creature in whom a human soul had not yet found home. Yet, with an intelligence and confidence which ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough

... it before you burn your brush and save the ashes; these will more than half pay you for clearing the land: and by burning at this season you will attract a drove of cattle about you that will destroy all sprouts which may be growing; do not leave more than four trees on an acre and girdle these in the full moon of March and they will never leaf again; thus you may have your land prepared for the seed ...
— History of Farming in Ontario • C. C. James

... broadcloth spangled with lace and buttons. A broad-brimmed low-crowned hat, a shirt of blue flannel, or buckskin, with pantaloons and mocassins of the same, all generally much the worse for wear, and smeared with mud and dust, make up the costume of the party, officers as well as men. A leathern girdle surrounds the waist, from which are suspended a bowie and a hunter's knife, and sometimes a brace of pistols. These, with the rifle and holster-pistols, are the arms carried by officers and privates. A single bugle (and a sorry one it is) composes the band. Many an embryo Napoleon, in his own ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant

... seem, by a genteel self-denial, from gratifying curiosity, lest it might be thought obtrusive. Their dress is singularly graceful; it consists of a loose flowing robe, with very wide sleeves, tied round the middle by a broad rich belt or girdle of wrought silk, a yellow cylindrical cap, and a neat straw sandal, over a short cotton boot or stocking. Two of the chiefs wore light yellow robes, the other dark blue streaked with white, all of cotton. The cap is flat at top, and appears to be formed by winding ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall

... holy and harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners on the earth (Heb 7:26). As Aaron first put on the holy garments, and then went into the holiest of all. The life, therefore, and conversation of our Lord Jesus, was to shew us with what a curious robe and girdle he went into the holy place; and not to shew us with what an Adamitish holiness he would possess his own. 'Such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... turned to see the voice, that spoke with me. And having turned, I saw seven golden lamp-stands; and in the midst of the seven lamp-stands one like a Son of man, clothed with a garment reaching the feet, and girded around the breasts with a golden girdle. His head, even his hair, was white like white wool, like snow; and his eyes were like a flame of fire; and his feet like fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice like the sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars: and from his mouth went forth a sharp two-edged ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss

... faster than Thor's Thialfi, away they go, rider and horse—did you see them? They are in California, leaping over its golden sands, treading its busy streets. The courser has unrolled to us the great American panorama, allowed us to glance at the homes of one million people, and has put a girdle around the earth in forty minutes. Verily the riding is like the riding of Jehu, the son of Nimshi for he rideth furiously. Take out your watch. We are eight days from New York, eighteen from London. The ...
— The Story of the Pony Express • Glenn D. Bradley

... a huge square, iron-bound, oaken chest; it was big enough, my children, for all four of you to play hide-and-seek in. The servants tugged with might and main, but could not lift this enormous receptacle, and were finally obliged to drag it across the floor. Captain Hull then took a key from his girdle, unlocked the chest, and lifted its ponderous lid. Behold! it was full to the brim of bright pine-tree shillings, fresh from the mint; and Samuel Sewell began to think that his father-in-law had got possession of all the money in the Massachusetts treasury. But it was only the ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker

... me first? In what still region Of thy domain, Whose provinces are legion, Wilt thou restore me to myself again, And quench my heart's long thirst? I pray thee lay thy golden girdle down, And put away thy starry crown: For one dear restful hour Assume a state more mild. Clad only in thy blossom-broidered gown That breathes familiar scent of many a flower, Take the low path that leads thro' pastures green; And though thou art a Queen, Be Rosamund awhile, and in thy ...
— Music and Other Poems • Henry van Dyke

... Christ. As man, He did His Father's will in Judaea of old; as man, He will judge the world; as man He rules it now; as man, St. John saw Him fifty years after He ascended to heaven, and His eyes were like a flame of fire, and His hair like fine wool, and He was girt under the bosom with a golden girdle, and His voice was like the sound of many waters; as man, He said: "Fear not: I am the first and the last; I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of death and hell." Yes. This is the gospel, the good news for ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley

... the messenger gave to the king; and who can tell his grief! But he wrote in reply, 'Welcome be the child that Christ sends! Welcome, O Lord, be thy pleasure! Be careful of my wife and child till my return.' The messenger on his return slept at Donegild's court, with the letter under his girdle. It was stolen while in his drunken sleep, and another put in its place, charging the constable not to let Constance remain three days in the kingdom, but to send her and her child away in the same ship in which she had ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith

... broad-brimmed hat set jauntily on one side, and trimmed with a long feather, completes the costume. By way of ornament is worn a big jewelled collar and a long chain with locket. A short sword swings from the girdle, and on the left leg is the garter, which is the badge of membership in the ancient Order of the Garter, of which Henry VIII. was the tenth sovereign member. This is of dark blue ribbon edged with ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll

... he would disappear from the public gaze for several months, and not even his business associates knew where he was. On one such occasion a traveler discovered him in a monastic retreat in the Swiss Mountains, wearing a horsehair robe and a rope girdle; others saw him disguised as a mendicant; and still another tells of finding him working as a day-laborer with obscure and ignorant peasants. Then there are tales told of how he was taken captive by a titled lady ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard

... a coat, a white waistcoat and a heavy, round black cap. On his coat, at the sleeves as well as down the front, and on his waistcoat, were numerous buttons, each one of gold, with a gleaming diamond for a centre. Round his waist was a heavy gold girdle of massive links, with two loops in front which went to form a watch-chain, long enough and strong enough for his highness to hang himself with. The third and fourth fingers of each hand were loaded with ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various

... is the world, saith that when the son of MBusa (MYalu) bringeth three chiefs of the same rank to sit at the Feet then shall the daughter of Bakala return unto him, but in the meantime shall her girdle ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle

... Thy silver girdle weaving, child! Before the godhead bow subdued Kings, thy worshipers and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... should find pleasure in attachment to him, for he “was not the final object of any being, and had not wherewith to satisfy any.” So jealous was he of any surprise of pleasure, of any thought of vanity or complacency in himself and his work, that he wore a girdle of iron next his skin, the sharp points of which he pressed closely when he thought himself in any danger, especially in such moments of intercourse with the world as ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch

... like garters, round his thin legs, which were utterly destitute of calf. Preposterously large roses covered his shoes; his ruff was a "treble-quadruple-dedalion;" his gloves richly embroidered; a large crimson satin purse hung from his girdle; and he was scented with powders and pulvilios. This withered coxcomb affected the mincing gait of a young man; and though rather an object of derision than admiration with the fair sex, persuaded himself they ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... saved the Nation's life, and what is life without honor?" They-worked and wrought with all of labor's royal sons that every pledge the Nation gave might be redeemed. And their great leader, having put a shining band of friendship—a girdle of clasped and happy hands—around the globe, comes home and finds that every promise made in war has now the ring and gleam ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll

... draping over a close fitted under bodice; and there was no relief to this somberness excepting that in the front of the bodice were many folds of lacy lawn, falling in many sheer pleats, edge to edge, gathered at the waist by a girdle confined by a simple buckle of gold. Now as I danced, myself absorbed so fully that I sought little analysis of impressions so pleasing, I became conscious dimly of a faint outline of some figure in color, deep in these folds of lacy lawn, an evanescent spot or ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough

... leather lynd with oil'd skyn leather, ye hose & dublett with hookes & eyes," a "sute of Norden 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 lether," and one ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle

... His eyes, nor decide by hearsay: but with righteousness shall He judge the poor, and give sentence with equity for the meek of the earth; but He shall smite the scorners with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips shall He slay the wicked, so that righteousness shall be the girdle of His loins, and faithfulness the girdle of His reins. Then the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid: and the calf and the young lion together, and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... are large, and even the houses." Peter Martyr of Angleria ("De Novo Orbe," translated by Richard Eden and Michael Lok, London, 1612, Dec. V, cap. X, p. 228), says: "But the common houses themselves as high as a mannes Girdle, were also built of stone, by reason of the swelling of the lake through the flood, or washing float of the Ryvers falling into it. Upon those greate foundations, they builded the reste of the house, ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan

... not Enarean (Vol. ix., p.101.).—A. C. M. has no other authority for calling the cassock and girdle of the clergy "effeminate," or "a relique of the ancient priestly predilection for female attire," than the contrast to the close-fitting skin-tight fashion adopted by modern European tailors; the same might be said of any flowing ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 232, April 8, 1854 • Various

... found me a fair good suit, more courtly than I had ever worn, and I scarce knew myself in the glory of its rich, dyed cloth. Fair linen next my skin, fit for an abbot's wear, a long blue tunic broidered with gold, and a trim girdle, a grand surcoat of damask, and a gay red cloak over all, with an emerald brooch on my right shoulder. With bright stockings and a little ribboned hat I was no longer Nigel the scholar of the Vale, but Nigel de ...
— The Fall Of The Grand Sarrasin • William J. Ferrar

... week there was the joy of a victory won. Untoward circumstances had been vanquished—the butcher, the baker had been settled with or—done without. For sometimes Amelia Craven came to give us a day's baking, and an array of fragrant scones and girdle-cakes, which I was taken into the kitchen to see on my return home, gave us the assurance of not having to starve ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett

... beside it. But even while she was inwardly congratulating herself, and confidently cherishing the belief that the stranger could not surpass her, Siegfried caught up the stone, flung it farther still, and grasping Gunther by his broad girdle, bounded through the air with him and landed far beyond it. Brunhild was outdone in all three feats, and, according to her own promise, belonged to the victor, Gunther, to whom she now bade her people show ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber

... loser by it." I assured him that I knew nothing about the road to B., and said that I would ask in the inn, or would conduct them to the village. But the man would not listen to reason; he drew from his girdle a pistol, the barrel of which glittered in the moonlight. "My dear fellow," he said in a very friendly tone, as he wiped off the glittering barrel and then ran his eye along it—"my dear fellow, you will have the kindness to go ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... plight of old Megan, who was bemoaning the loss of her property on the wrong side of the gorge so many years ago, when there appeared to her suddenly a cowled monk, whose dark face was scarcely discernible, with a rosary hanging to his girdle, and a deep but ...
— Legend Land, Vol. 1 • Various

... hill was laid, His dogge to his girdle was tied; He had not slept but a little brayd When Gloria in Excelsis to him was said. Ut Hoy! For in his pipe he made so ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude

... and telling Toby to follow my example, I broke through the covert and advanced, waving the branch in token of peace towards the shrinking forms before me. They were a boy and a girl, slender and graceful, and completely naked, with the exception of a slight girdle of bark, from which depended at opposite points two of the russet leaves of the bread-fruit tree. An arm of the boy, half screened from sight by her wild tresses, was thrown about the neck of the girl, while with the other he held one of her hands in his; and thus they stood together, ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... the savage and now the white man was uppermost, but at length, with a huge effort, Cavendish twisted himself from under his foe, and lay full-length on top of him, feeling for his dagger. The chief, however, had likewise seized a knife which hung at his girdle, and, before the captain could draw his weapon, he plunged ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... a red turban, a jerkin of quilted leather, with iron scales fastened on to protect the shoulders and chest. A scarlet kilt hung to his knees, and his legs were enclosed in putties, or swathes, of coarse cloth, wound round and round them. He wore a blue and gold girdle. ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty

... the now deserted Bois; soon it was rushing up the steep countrified streets of St. Cloud, and then, settling down to a high speed, they found themselves in the broad silent alleys of those splendid royal woods which form so noble a girdle about western Paris. They sped through sunlit avenues of fresh green foliage, past old houses which had seen the splendid pageant of Louis the Fifteenth and his Court sweep by on their way to Marly-le-Roi, and so till they gained the lofty ridge which dominates ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... the neatly folded clothes of Jimmie Dale; and with them, serving him so well in the days gone by, the leather girdle, or undervest, with its stout-sewn, upright pockets in which nestled, in an array of fine, blue-steel, highly tempered instruments, a compact powerful burglar's kit. It was the one thing that he ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... remembering what he had heard of her inflexible obduracy in such affairs, he did not venture; but quietly replaced the bedclothes; and having passed the best part of the night very much at his ease in her room, he took from one of the lady's boxes a purse, a gown, a ring and a girdle, and with these tokens returned to the chest, and locked himself in as before. In this manner he passed two nights, nor did the lady in the least suspect his presence. On the third day the good woman came by preconcert to fetch her chest, ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio

... fastening, tie; ligament, ligature; strap; tackle, rigging; standing rigging, running rigging; traces, harness; yoke; band ribband, bandage; brace, roller, fillet; inkle[obs3]; with, withe, withy; thong, braid; girder, tiebeam; girth, girdle, cestus[obs3], garter, halter, noose, lasso, surcingle, knot, running knot; cabestro [obs3][U. S.], cinch [U. S.], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... lost in thought in the darkening shrine. Then sleep fell on me and in my sleep I dreamed a dream, or saw a vision. For suddenly there stood before me a woman beauteous as myself clad in nothing save a golden girdle ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard

... 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 induced Margarita ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell

... of the century is not whether they can hold their own against a foreign power as in the days of Waterloo, but whether all these British commonwealths can be made to work together in some sort of federal union, or whether the present ties are to dissolve or snap asunder and girdle the globe with independent states like the American republic, where each may be free to develop under its peculiar conditions the genius of the ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy

... Hathor figures in place of the cowry-amulets of more primitive peoples. This affords corroboration of the view that Hathor assumed the functions originally attributed to the cowry-shell. (b) The king's sporran, where Hathor-heads (H) take the place of the cowries of the primitive girdle 150 ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith

... beneath the burning sun, had done the work for him; he was useless, and to save his dying from thirst and starvation, they killed him. They did that with sorrowful hearts, well knowing if they waited to take him with them, it would be death to them, and that he could never escape from his girdle ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle

... went for a swim in the sea. Burton then took up a heavy iron stick with a silver knob [278] and walked to the Consulate, which was situated in the heart of the town, while Mrs. Burton, with her pockets bulging with medicines, and a flask of water ready for baptism emergencies hanging to her girdle, busied herself with charitable work, including the promotion of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. They generally dined at the table d'hote of the Hotel de la Ville, and dined well, for, as Burton ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... was unknown. Small pieces of metal or leather stamped with some given value were, it is true, used as tokens. Having a perforation in the centre they were strung together, and were usually carried at the girdle. But each man was as it were his own coiner, and the leather or metal token fabricated by him, and exchanged with another for value received, was but a personal acknowledgment of indebtedness, such as a promissory note is among us. No man was entitled to fabricate more of these tokens than he ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot

... moment before replying, as though to gauge her mind and the effect his announcement might have. Very charming she looked, that evening, in a crepe de Chine gown with three-quarter lace sleeves and an Oriental girdle—a wonderful Nile-green creation, very simple (she had told herself) yet of staggering cost. A single white rose graced her hair. The low-cut neck of the gown revealed a full, strong bosom. Around her throat she wore a ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England

... hand is stretched out still. 26. And He will lift up an ensign to the nations from far, and will hiss unto them from the end of the earth: and, behold, they shall come with speed swiftly: 17. None shall be weary nor stumble among them; none shall slumber nor sleep; neither shall the girdle of their loins be loosed, nor the latchet of their shoes be broken: 28. Whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent, their horses' hoofs shall be counted like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind: 29. Their roaring shall be like a lion, they shall ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... 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 in ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston

... men draw pretty tight just below the fork, the upper edge of it is left loose, so as to form a kind of hollow belt, which serves them as a pocket to carry their knives, and other little implements which it is convenient to have about them. The other piece of cloth is passed through this girdle behind, and one end of it being brought over the left shoulder, and the other over the right, they fall down over the breast, and are tucked into the girdle before, so that by opening or closing the plaits, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr

... hand dismissing the whole subject the soldier turned away. He plucked a cigarette out of his girdle and prepared to light it. His companion on the donkey had not turned his head nor shown the slightest interest in the discussion. This had lasted long enough. I knew that in another minute I should have to laugh. If anything remained for me ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall

... used at the coronation of her Majesty the Empress, and which consisted of a crown, a diadem, and a girdle, came from the establishment of M. Margueritte. The crown had eight branches, which supported a golden globe surmounted by a cross, each branch set with diamonds, four being in the shape of palm and four of myrtle leaves. Around the crown ran a band set with eight enormous emeralds, ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant

... with forfeits, which I recommend to all who wish to make a rapid improvement in the Spanish tongue. Last night, being desired to name a forfeit for the padre, I condemned him to dance the jarabe, of which he performed a few steps in his long gown and girdle, with equal awkwardness and good nature. We met to-day the prettiest little ranchera, a farmer's wife or daughter, riding in front of a mozo on the same horse, their usual mode, dressed in a short embroidered muslin petticoat, white satin shoes, a pearl necklace, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca

... Francesca Romana, the picturesque church near the Temple of Peace, I found a feast for the eyes—a dim crimson-toned light through curtained windows, a great festoon of tapers round the altar, a bulging girdle of lamps before the sunken shrine beneath, and a dozen white-robed Dominicans scattered in the happiest composition on the pavement. It ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... sat there on the fountain rim, an elbow on his crossed knees, chin resting in his hand, his eyes studying us. A small, slight figure of a man, no more than thirty-five. Simply dressed; white trousers of the tropics, with a strip of narrow black down the leg-fronts; a girdle of gold; ruffled white shirt, with sleeves that flared a trifle, and a neck-piece of black. From his belt dangled a few instruments and several personal weapons—beautifully wrought, small—almost miniatures—yet ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings

... monks in all kinds of habits; nuns of the strictest discipline, entirely veiled and wrapped in meditation; and in the large squares troops of young Polesses in light-coloured silk mantles engaged in conversation; venerable old Polish gentlemen with moustaches, caftan, girdle, sword, and yellow and red boots; and the new generation in the most incroyable Parisian fashion. Turks, Greeks, Russians, Italians, and French in an ever-changing throng; moreover, an exceedingly tolerant police that interfered nowise with the popular amusements, ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... no more, but he looked plainly enough his suspicions. He now gave his attention to William Hinkley, whose mother, while this scene was in progress, had been occupied, as Calvert had begun, in stanching the blood, and trimming with her scissors, which were fortunately at her girdle, the hair from the wound. The son, meanwhile, had wakened to consciousness. He had been stunned but not severely injured by the blow, and, with the promptitude of a border-dame, Mrs. Hinkley, hurrying to a pine-tree, ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms

... and chattering close past him. The least was the last, and it wore a long shirt which got in the way of its little bare feet, and kept tripping it up. The peasant had sense enough left to feel compassion, so he took his garter off and bound it for a girdle round the infant, and then set it again on its way. When the Berchtl saw what he had done, she turned back and thanked him, and told him that in return for his compassion his children should never come ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles

... gown she chose for that evening should sound the keynote of her personality like a leitmotif in an opera. The costume was a creation of white satin, the folds caught here and there with strings of pearls. There was a single large rose of pink velvet among the draperies of the skirt; a looped girdle of blue velvet was the only other splash of color. But the full-leaved, expanded and matured rose became the vivid epitome and illustration of the woman herself. A rope of pearls that hung down to her waist added ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis

... a girdle about his middle, Imbroidered ower wi' burning gold, Bespangled wi' the same metal; Maist ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott

... which welcomed their appearance swept before it the reluctance of Rome, the jealousy of the older orders, the opposition of the parochial priesthood. Thousands of brethren gathered in a few years round Francis and Dominic; and the begging preachers, clad in coarse frock of serge with a girdle of rope round their waist, wandered barefooted as missionaries over Asia, battled with heresy in Italy and Gaul, lectured in the Universities, and preached and toiled among ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green

... 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 ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... widely as it did. But everywhere irrepressible longings for social and political equality and freedom, born of long oppression, were stirring the souls of men. The French armies were everywhere welcomed as deliverers. Thus was France enabled to surround herself with a girdle of commonwealths. She conquered Europe not by her armies, but by her ideas. "An invasion of armies," says Victor Hugo, "can be resisted: an invasion of ideas ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... was encouraged in this new direction. It is needless to be prolix in an enumeration of particulars: Protestant historians mention on this occasion, with great triumph, the sacred repositories of convents; the parings of St. Edmond's toes; some of the coals that roasted St. Laurence; the girdle of the Virgin shown in eleven several places; two or three heads of St. Ursula; the felt of St Thomas of Lancaster, an infallible cure for the headache; part of St. Thomas of Canterbury's shirt, much reverenced by big-bellied women; some relics, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume

... of the seas and rivers, made its appearance upon the lake, and, issuing from behind a small heronry where it had been concealed, floated gently towards the farther end of the bridge. On the islet appeared a beautiful woman, clad in a watchet-coloured silken mantle, bound with a broad girdle, inscribed with characters like the phylacteries of the Hebrews. Her feet and arms were bare, but her wrists and ankles were adorned with gold bracelets of uncommon size. Amidst her long silky black hair she wore a crown or chaplet of artificial ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... were given chiefly to the "drivers" or gang foremen. Each of these had for example every year a "doubled milled cloth colored great coat" costing 11$. 6d and a "fine bound hat with girdle and buckle" costing 10$. 6d.As a more direct and frequent stimulus a quart of rum was served weekly to each of three drivers, three carpenters, four boilers, two head cattlemen, two head mulemen, the "stoke-hole boatswain," and the black doctor, and to the ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... by a bear was also very evident. He was naked to the waist, and had been cutting grass. His bundle lay by him, and the long curved kind of sickle that the hillmen used to cut grass with was stuck in his girdle, showing that he had not had time to draw it to strike one blow in his defence. The mark of the bear's paw on his left side was quite distinct. This had felled him to the ground, and then the savage brute ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... form rounded and polished as marble, and we must agree that Miss Dimpleton could easily dispense with the accessory to the dress of which we have spoken. The band of a small apron of dark green levantine formed a girdle round a waist which might have been spanned ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... than the effects of madness; certainly if they were not mad, they imitated very closely some of its most striking features." Jeremiah takes a long journey to the river Euphrates and hides a linen girdle in a hole of a rock. He then returns home and in a few days makes the same journey, and finds the girdle rotten and good for nothing. Ezekiel digs a hole in the wall of his house, and through it removes his household goods, instead of through the door. Hosea marries a ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir

... principally of various pairs of scissors, and the ACIAL, two short sticks tied together with whipcord at the end, by means of which the lower lip of the horse, should he prove restive, is twisted, and the animal reduced to speedy subjection. In the girdle of the esquilador are stuck the large scissors called in Spanish TIJERAS, and in the Gypsy tongue CACHAS, with which he principally works. He operates upon the backs, ears, and tails of mules and borricos, which are invariably sheared ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow

... interrupted him a second time. Beville took his purse from his girdle, and shook it at the preacher, as an admission that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various

... of a Priest who ministered in the Temple at Jerusalem, and whose mother was of the family of Aharun, was in the deserts until the day of his showing unto Israel. He drank neither wine nor strong drink. Clad in hair-cloth, and with a girdle of leather, and feeding upon such food as the desert afforded, he preached, in the country about Jordan, the baptism of repentance, for the remission of siri-s; that is, the necessity of repentance proven by reformation. He taught the people charity and liberality; the publicans, justice, equity, ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... wet them while wading among the lilies; but Ossaroo, not being provided with any nether garment entitled to the name of trowsers, had simply tucked up the skirt of his cotton tunic, making it fast under his girdle. ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid

... his presence, that he had almost the effect of an apparition; and certainly a less appropriate one (taking into view the dim woodland solitude about us) than if the salvage man of antiquity, hirsute and cinctured with a leafy girdle, had started out of a thicket. He was still young, seemingly a little under thirty, of a tall and well-developed figure, and as handsome a man as ever I beheld. The style of his beauty, however, though a masculine style, did not at ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... composed, and, in obedience to his master's gesture, put on the robe of a lay-brother, which was spread out upon the bed, and fastened the leathern girdle. When he was dressed he opened wide his arms and displayed himself, smiling to his master, who was gratified to see how dignified, how spiritually beautiful ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro

... some difficulty in getting out of her wedding-finery. There was a momentary temptation to call for help. But she thought better of this, and in the end she came down-stairs like a girl, in a light, clinging dress of Chinese silk, with a girdle and tassel at the waist, and a red ribbon woven into the throat. You might have thought she was seventeen or eighteen. As a matter of fact, she ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge

... Cairo that Mahmoud and Abdullah were to run a race, the winner to receive a costly girdle of rich embroidery, finished with a clasp set with gems. Great was the interest, and on the day appointed crowds assembled to see the race, gathering long before the ...
— Harper's Young People, April 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... in my collection is a gold figure of a man, 7 centimeters in height. The head is ornamented with a diadem terminated on each side with the head of a frog. The body is nude, except a girdle, also in the form of a plait, supporting a flat piece intended to cover the privates, and two round ornaments on each side. The arms are extended from the body; the well drawn hands hold, one of them a short, round club, the other a musical instrument, of which one end is in the mouth and ...
— Ancient art of the province of Chiriqui, Colombia • William Henry Holmes

... downcast as any. He came ashore dressed, not in the gleaming armor and crimson robes of a conqueror, as on his first return, but in the garb of what was known as a penitent—the long, coarse gown, the knotted girdle and peaked hood of a priest. For, you see, he did not know just what terrible stories had been told by his enemies; he did not know how the king and queen would receive him. He had promised them so much; he had brought them so little. He had sailed away ...
— The True Story of Christopher Columbus • Elbridge S. Brooks

... jumped across and brought her back a handkerchief full. They were of two kinds: close to the water's edge the marsh orchis, and farther back, a small marguerite. Out of this they made a crown of the alternate flowers, and a girdle for her waist. That was an evening of rare beauty, and warm enough already for an early chafer to go blooming in the dusk. An evening when they wandered with their arms round each other a long time, silent, stopping to listen to an owl; stopping to point out each star coming ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... 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

... called 'the transcendentally beautiful queen of the nebulae'—an appellation which it scarcely merits. This object, which is plainly visible to the naked eye, is of an oval shape, of a milky white colour, and is situated near the most northern star of the three which form the girdle of Andromeda. It was known to the ancients, and Ali Sufi, a Persian astronomer who flourished in the tenth century, alludes to it; but it did not attract much attention until the seventeenth century. Simon Marius was the first to observe this object with ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard

... well, Nigh dead with thirst, lay where he yelped and fell, Glaring upon the water out of reach, And praying succour in a silent speech, So piteous were its eyes. Which, when she saw, This woman from her foot her shoe did draw, Albeit death-sorrowful, and, looping up The long silk of her girdle, made a cup Of the heel's hollow, and thus let it sink Until it touched the cool black water's brink; So filled th' embroidered shoe, and gave a draught To the spent beast, which whined, and fawned, ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various

... ears?'—'Enter, my lady, such is the law of Allat.'" And from gate to gate he removes some ornament from the distressed lady—now her necklace with its attached amulets, now the tunic which covers her bosom, now her enamelled girdle, her bracelets, and the rings on her ankles: and at length, at the seventh gate, takes from her her last covering. When she at length arrives in the presence of Allat, she throws herself upon her in order to wrest from her ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... individually than the Doctor himself, and weighing, inclusive of the entire apparatus lifted with them, nearly nineteen hundred pounds avoirdupois. In the performance of this tremendous feat, Dr. W. employed neither straps, bands, nor girdle,—nothing in short but a stout oaken stick fitting across his shoulders, and having attached to it a couple of rather formidable-looking chains. At his request, a committee, appointed by the audience, and furnished with one of Fairbanks's scales, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... wailing, answered weeping, "Take my balm, O Hiawatha!" And he took the tears of balsam, Took the resin of the Fir Tree, Smeared therewith each seam and fissure, Made each crevice safe from water. "Give me of your quills, O Hedgehog! I will make a necklace of them, Make a girdle for my beauty, And two stars to deck her bosom!" From a hollow tree the Hedgehog, With his sleepy eyes looked at him, Shot his shining quills, like arrows, Saying, with a drowsy murmur, Through the tangle of his whiskers, "Take my quills, O Hiawatha!" From the ground the quills he gathered, ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools

... covering for the bed at night. It is a loose but troublesome garment, as it is often disarranged and slips down, so that the person who wears it is every moment obliged to tuck it up and rearrange it. This shows the great use there is of a girdle whenever men are in active employment, and explains the force of the Scripture injunction of having our loins girded. The method of wearing this garment, with the use it is at other times put to as bed-covering, makes it probable that it is similar to if not identical with ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne

... hurried downstairs, and then out by the back entrance into a narrow lane. Philip carried a heavy hammer on his shoulder. Pierre had a large butcher's knife stuck conspicuously in his girdle. He was bare headed and had dipped his head in water, so that his hair fell matted across his face, which ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty

... be 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 nations looked upon them as the favoured ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... was wet, as if the sea had only recently been flowing over it, and on it he saw a pale girl with such lovely eyes. She wore a green kirtle, and round her body a broad silver girdle with figures upon it, such as the Finns use. Her bodice was of tar-brown skin, and beneath her stay-laces, which seemed to be of green sea-grass, was a foam-white chemise, like the ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie

... motion. His cross-bow and belt were handed to Tell; he tried the point, broke the weapon, and demanded his quiver. It was brought to him, and emptied at his feet. William stooped down, and, taking a long time to choose one, managed to hide a second in his girdle; the other he held in his hand, and proceeded to string his bow, while Berenger cleared away the remaining arrows. After hesitating, he drew the bow, aimed, shot, and the apple, struck through the core, was carried away ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot

... turned and faced the monster. Something she had drawn from her girdle shone palely in her hand. It was a knife of whetted stone ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various

... of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society, York, is another specimen, equally simple in its construction. It was presented by Lady Thornton to the Society in 1880, and near it may be seen thumb-screws from York Castle; leg bar, waist girdle, and wrist shackles, worn by the notorious highwayman, Dick Turpin, executed April 17th, 1739; and a leg bar, worn by another notorious highwayman, named Nevison, who suffered death on the gallows, ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews

... Well, since you have divorced me, I will tell you, I go straight to another man. Now, look your last on me; for you love me, do you not?" and she slipped the mantle from her shoulders and except for her girdle stood before ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard

... body from my parents, you did not buy my soul! Farewell, my love, my life! and farewell, senors! May you be more merciful to your daughters than my parents were to me!' And so, catching a dagger from the girdle of one of the soldiers, smote herself to the heart, and fell ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... cave; she was thus greeted as a saint as soon as she appeared; no one was surprised to see her in her Carmelite habit, a cowl on her head, a white mantle on her shoulders, a robe of coarse drugget, and a leathern girdle. God permitted the appearance of Catherine at the court of Philip II. as a virgin with the heart of a man, victorious over all the weakness, of her sex, and rivalling in her austerities the most famous penitents ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier

... least, was a story that would set the States ablaze before it could be contradicted, and away it went, fast as the Esmeralda could speed it across the China Sea and the wires, with it, well-nigh girdle the globe. ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King

... disappoints expectation,) I pronounce the colonnade to be absolutely essential. Without it the temple would never seem to invite, as it does and ought to do, the whole Christian world to enter it. Oh, if it were only to girdle in those two beautiful fountains, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various

... of Mr. Hersebom's hand's, and was feeling his pulse and he shook his head, sadly and doubtfully; but he would not neglect any of the means which are usually tried in such cases. After taking off a large woolen girdle which he wore around his waist, he tore it in three pieces, and giving one to each of the young men, they rubbed vigorously the body, the arms, and the legs ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne

... falling. In my present posture, I might naturally have considered this an invitation to satisfy myself of the truth of her assertion, yet I did not dare, and during the whole way my arm served as a girdle (a very close one, I must confess), without being a moment displaced. Some women that may read this would be for giving me a box on the ear, and, truly, I ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... which was needed to raise him to distinction as an officer, he had thrown off his military habits when he returned to civil life. As he prospered and grew rich he might well have worn a sword, but instead he would ever bear a small copy of the Scriptures bound to his girdle, where other men hung their weapons. He was sober and measured in his speech, and it was seldom, even in the bosom of his own family, that he would speak of the scenes which he had taken part in, or of the great men, Fleetwood and Harrison, Blake and Ireton, Desborough and Lambert, ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... stirring and skimming at the boiling-pans, and ladling out coarse unrefined sugar into little earthen bowls to cool. This common sugar in bowls is very generally used by the poorer Mexicans. The sugar-boilers were naked excepting a cotton girdle. These men were very strong, and with great powers of endurance, but they did not at all resemble the strong men of Europe with their great muscles standing up under their skin, the men in Michael Angelo's pictures, or the Farnese ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor

... queen's majestie can fancie him. For Pipinus Brevis, who married Bertha, the King of Almain's daughter, was so little to her, that he is standing in Aquisgrave, or Moguerre, a church in Almain, she taking him by the hand, and his head not reaching to her girdle; and yet he had by her Charlemain, the great Emperor and King of France, which is reported to be almost a giant's stature."[866] It was not so easy to dispose of the disparity in years,[867] and perhaps still less of Alencon's disfigurement by small-pox; for that unlucky prince added ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... instantaneously removed at the nod of our entertainer. The Scots, in general, are attached to this composition, with a sort of national fondness, as well as to their oat-meal bread; which is presented at every table, in thin triangular cakes, baked upon a plate of iron, called a girdle; and these, many of the natives, even in the higher ranks of life, prefer to wheaten-bread, which they have here in perfection — You know we used to vex poor Murray of Baliol college, by asking, if there was really no fruit but turnips ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... distributed her greetings, and defended her dog—all, as it were, in one breath—Lady Lydiard sat down by Isabel's side, and opened a large green fan that hung at her girdle. "You have no idea, Miss Pink, how fat people suffer in hot weather," said the old lady, using ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins

... matter, that the cowl does not make the monk, that she thought herself, for all she did not wear flowers in her hat, a more honest woman than your society ladies, false jades everyone, concluding with her pet proverb: Better a good name than a gilt girdle! ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France

... where the trees have, with characteristic thrift, been planted around human burial mounds. The remaining pictures show how the chestnut blight acts in China—very differently from the way it acts in this country. In China, it produces, as the pictures show, definite cankers, which do not girdle the tree, which kill young trees occasionally, mutilate old trees, kill branches, but the cankers do not girdle the trees. That disease has been known in China we have no idea how many years, and, while it does a certain amount ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Seventh Annual Meeting • Various

... Grandma, the Demon, would join them, the silver cigarette case dangling at her girdle. Then was he sorely beset. They would perhaps talk about him over his head, discuss his points as if he were some new ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson

... in fact, long regarded as more intimately connected with earthquakes than it, probably, actually is; the association being regarded in a causative light, whereas the connexion is more that of possessing a common origin. The girdle of volcanoes around the Pacific and the earthquake belt coincide. Again, the ancient and modern volcanoes and earthquakes of Europe are associated with the geosyncline of the greater Mediterranean, ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly

... minute both he and the messenger were hauling at the reins and the horse had grown frantic from fear of falling backward. He shouted for help, and Ismail and another man came leaping down, looking like the devils of the rocks, to lend their strength. Ismail tightened his long girdle and stung the other two with whiplash words, so that Darya Khan overcame prejudice to the point of stowing his rifle between some rocks and lending a hand. Then it took all four of them fifteen minutes to heave and haul the struggling animal ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy

... enough," replied Alice, who had seemed ready to laugh outright, during this encomium. "I think I see one of these paragons now, in a Bloomer, I think you call it, swaggering along with a Bowie knife at her girdle, smoking a cigar, no doubt, and tippling sherry-cobblers and mint-juleps. It must ...
— The Ancestral Footstep (fragment) - Outlines of an English Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Eighth side. Envy. One of the noblest pieces of expression in the series. She is pointing malignantly with her finger; a serpent is wreathed about her head like a cap, another forms the girdle of her waist, and a dragon rests ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin

... King ha's wag'd with him six Barbary horses, against the which he impon'd as I take it, sixe French Rapiers and Poniards, with their assignes, as Girdle, Hangers or so: three of the Carriages infaith are very deare to fancy, very responsiue to the hilts, most delicate carriages, and of very ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... singular decoration is a large cushion, made of the skin of a crow, stuffed with any light material, and variously ornamented. It has two decorated sticks, projecting from it upward, and a pendent one beneath; this apparatus is secured upon the buttocks by a girdle passing round the body. The other actors in the scene were decorated with paints of several colors, fantastically disposed upon their persons. Several were painted with white clay, which had the appearance of being grooved in many places. This grooved appearance ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake

... from the rule, nor yet intrude Upon each other's work, nor are they rude In managing their own: but to their trust They labour to be honest, faithful, just. 1. The chief is he who is the Lord of all, The Saviour; some him physician call. He's cloth'd in shining raiment to the ground, A golden girdle doth begirt him round; His head and hairs are white as any snow, His eyes are like a flame of fire also; His feet are like fine brass, as if they burn'd Within a furnace, or to fire were turn'd; His voice doth like to many waters sound; In his right ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... garments was like that of the Indians, the large surfaces plain, or covered with quiet diapers or spots, the rich ornaments being reserved for the borders, the girdles and the scarves. Their garments hung loose from the shoulders or girdle; whether long or short they clung to the figure or fluttered in the wind. The long flowing robes to the feet veiled the form completely, and were only thrown off for the battle or the chase, or in the struggles ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford

... pillars. By the Greeks they were named Atlantes, from the well-known fable of Atlas supporting the heavens. Here they are made of terra-cotta, or baked clay, incrusted with the finest marble stucco. Their only covering is a girdle round the loins; they have been painted flesh-color, with black hair and beards; the moulding of the pedestal and the baskets on their heads were in imitation of gold; and the pedestal itself, as well as the wall behind them and ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... all in post, Borne by the trustless wings of false desire, Lust-breathed Tarquin leaves the Roman host, And to Collatium bears the lightless fire Which, in pale embers hid, lurks to aspire And girdle with embracing flames the waist Of Collatine's fair love, Lucrece ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... already been active for some hour or so in the worship of their favourite muse, that Robinson was standing up with his arm round his fair one's waist, immediately opposite to the door of entrance. His right arm still embraced her slight girdle, whilst with his left hand he wiped the perspiration from his brow. She leaned against him palpitating, for the motion of the music had been quick, and there had been some amicable contest among the couples. It ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope

... destined to rattle over the stones like the most vulgar of omnibuses. To complete the oddity of this conveyance, it was under the supervision, not of a conductor, but of a conductress. A fair young woman, with a pouch sus- pended from her girdle, had command of the platform; and as soon as the car was full she jolted us into the town through clouds of the thickest dust I ever have swallowed. I have had occasion to speak of the activity of women in France, - of ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James

... Carmosell, which came into Africa to steale Negroes, and went out of Tripolis vnto that place, which was two hundred and fourtie leagues thence, but wee were chained three and three to an oare, and wee rowed naked aboue the girdle, and the Boteswaine of the Galley walked abaft the maste, and his Mate afore the maste, and eche of them a bulls pissell dried in their handes, and when their diuelish choller rose, they would strike the Christians for no cause: and they allowed ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt

... fully understand the nature of his proposition; but if he had proposed to "put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes," she would have said and acted, "Yes, Sir, I am ready," just ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... and the woods were so profoundly obscured, that Roy had to grope about for some time before he found a suitable tree. Cutting it down with the axe which always hung at his girdle, he returned to camp with it on his shoulder, and cut off the small soft branches, which Nelly spread over the ground to the depth of nearly half a foot. This "pine-brush," as it is called, formed ...
— Silver Lake • R.M. Ballantyne

... it is especially adapted to the perspective of the stage. Constructed in a certain way, it communicates its relief to things which, but for it, would be considered insignificant and trivial. It makes the tissue of style finer and firmer. It is the knot which stays the thread. It is the girdle which holds up the garment and gives it all its folds. What could nature and the true lose, then, by entering into verse? We ask the question of our prose-writers themselves—what do they lose in Moliere's poetry? Does wine—we beg pardon for another trivial illustration—does ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot



Words linked to "Girdle" :   foundation garment, surround, gird, stays, plant, border, pelvic arch, panty girdle, pectoral girdle, waistcloth, pelvic girdle, plant life, skeletal structure, foundation, limb-girdle muscular dystrophy, incise, ring, waistband, corset, shoulder girdle, cummerbund



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