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Loins

noun
1.
The lower part of the abdomen just above the external genital organs.  Synonyms: pubes, pubic region.
2.
The region of the hips and groin and lower abdomen.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Loins" Quotes from Famous Books



... with an everlasting love." Soon shall the bridal-hour arrive, when thine absent Lord shall come to welcome His betrothed bride into His royal palace. "The Bridegroom tarrieth;" but see that thou dost not slumber and sleep! Surely there is much all around demanding the girded loins and the burning lamps. At "midnight!" (the hour when He is least expected) the cry may be—shall be heard,—"Behold, the Bridegroom cometh!" My soul! has this mystic union been formed between thee and thy ...
— The Faithful Promiser • John Ross Macduff

... is an inscription, scarcely legible, which records the death of the mother of Mrs. Mary Morton on April 18, 1634, and saying that she was the wonder of her sex and age, for she lived to see nearly 400 issued from her loins. ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... gird up thy loins and arise, and speak unto them all that I command thee."—God help me! (He drops on his knees at a prie-dieu; there he finds a note, which he reads.) "Don't preach to-day; your life is in danger."—The Tempter himself wrote that! (He ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg

... not only a "white man's country," but as completely British as possible. We ought to make every effort to keep the stock sturdy and strong, as well as racially pure. The pioneers were for the most part an ideal stock for a new offshoot of the Mother-country. The Great War revealed that from their loins have sprung some of the finest men the world has ever seen, not only in physical strength, but in character and spirit. It also revealed that an inferior strain had crept in and that New Zealand was already getting its share of weaklings. Surely our aim should be to prevent, as far ...
— Mental Defectives and Sexual Offenders • W. H. Triggs, Donald McGavin, Frederick Truby King, J. Sands Elliot, Ada G. Patterson, C.E. Matthews

... seven feet in length, with an average of nearly two and a half feet in width and one foot in thickness. Upon its face was beautifully wrought, in bold relief, the full length figure of a man, in a loose robe with a girdle about his loins, his arms crossed on his breast, his head encased in a close cap or casque, resembling the Roman helmet (as represented in the etchings of Pinelli) without the crest, and his feet and ankles bound with the ties of sandals. The figure is that of a tall muscular man of the finest proportions. ...
— Some Observations on the Ethnography and Archaeology of the American Aborigines • Samuel George Morton

... suddenly reappeared, dark and savage, like a dun rock emerging from mist. One furious giant, moving with curling upraised tail, challenged to universal combat, whilst all his rivals gave way, reluctant, resentful, yet afraid. The rumps of some of the veterans were as bare of hair as the loins of lions, but their enormous shoulders bulked into deformity by reason of a dense mane. They moved like elephants—clumsy, enormous, distorted, yet ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... climb the blackish rocks, amid unforeseen stumbles, and over stones which the ice made slippery. More than once I rolled over at the expense of my loins. Conseil, more prudent or more steady, did not stumble, and ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne

... of this animal are its massive form, its large head closely set on the shoulders, its stout and rather short legs, its slender loins and heavy buttocks, its tail thick at the base" (Anderson). The general colour is similar to that of the Bengal rhesus monkey, but the skin of the chest and belly is bluish, the face livid, with a white ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... thus engaged was, as Karamaneh had declared, almost superhumanly thin. His loins were swathed in a sort of linen garment, and his head so bound about, turban fashion, that only his gleaming eyes remained visible. The bare limbs and body were of a dusky yellow colour, and, at sight of him, I experienced ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer

... and picturesqueness distinguish the costume of Asirvadam the Brahmin. Three yards of yard-wide fine cotton cloth envelope his loins, in such a manner, that, while one end hangs in graceful folds in front, the other falls in a fine distraction behind. Over this, a robe of muslin, or silk, or pia cloth—the latter in peculiar favor, by reason of its superior purity, for high-caste wear—covers his neck, breast, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... pedants call it, but which I never felt in 'actu secundo' till last week, and that is a fit of the stone or gravel. It was, thank God, but a slight one; but it was 'dans toutes les formes'; for it was preceded by a pain in my loins, which I at first took for some remains of my rheumatism; but was soon convinced of my mistake, by making water much blacker than coffee, with a prodigious sediment of gravel. I am now perfectly easy again, and have no more ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... the wearing of which was as common among the ladies of that time as the wearing of gloves in our day. The count became entirely unrecognizable after he had put on an old gray felt hat with a broken cock's feather on his head. He girded round his loins a broad leathern belt, in which he stuck a dagger, which he did not wear habitually. These miserable garments gave him so terrifying an air and he approached the bed with so strange a motion that the countess thought her last hour ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac

... execration. I soon learnt to dread those conferences, those terrific scenes which I was forced to witness in my capacity of interpreter. O—— revelled in them with exceeding gusto. He used to gird his loins for the effort of vituperation; I think he regarded the performance as a legitimate kind of exercise—his last remaining one. As soon as the boy returned from town and presented himself with his purchases, O—— would glare at him for two or three minutes with such virulence, ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas

... says Mr. Dawson. 'What a shoulder, what legs, what loins he has! Ah! well, he'll be weighted out now, and you will be ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood

... way in which one of them had gently stroked his beard, into an attempt to take him by the throat and strangle him—an injury and indignity which, when safe on board, he resented by repeated threats, uttered in a sort of wild chant, of spearing their thighs, back, loins, and, indeed, every ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc

... loud, deep, and distinct, it seemed to me, who was then young, as if the sounds had echoed from the bottom of the human heart, and as if that prayer might have floated in solemn silence through the universe. The idea of St. John came into my mind, of one crying in the wilderness, who had his loins girt about, and whose food was locusts and wild honey. The preacher then launched into his subject, like an eagle dallying with the wind. The sermon was upon peace and war—upon Church and State; not their alliance, but their separation; ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous

... thirty-five or more, wearing only a rag round his loins. In his features, as in the shape of his head, there could be recognized the type of the African negro. It was not possible to confound him with the debased wretches of the Polynesian islands, who, with their depressed crania and elongated arms, ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne

... give his benediction to his patron, the captain took him impressively by the rope which girded his cassock about the loins, and giving it a sharp jerk ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise

... and eyes, and waves Of hair, and loins, ... And secret dales and places! Roses of love and myrtles! Ye feet that bind with chains! Hands, Fountains of caress, And Doves of longing sweet, ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas

... consisting of four pairs; the first proceeding from the head by the back of the neck and spinal cord to the hips, lower extremities and outer ankle; the second, consisting of the jugular vessels (ai sfagitides), proceeding to the loins, thighs, hams and inner ankle; the third proceeding from the temples by the neck to the scapula and lungs, and thence by mutual intercrossings to the spleen and left kidney, and the liver and right kidney, and finally to the rectum; and the fourth from the fore-part of the neck to ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... doomed to the Asae. Einar, the Jarl of Orkney, with his sword carved the captive's back into the form of an eagle, the spine being longitudinally divided, and the ribs being separated by a transverse cut as far as the loins. He then extracted the lungs, and dedicated them to Odin for a perpetuity of victory, singing a wild song,—'I am revenged for the slaughter of Rognvalld: this have the Nornae decreed. In my fiording the pillar of the people has fallen. Build ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... box being thus apparently disclosed to the scrutiny of the company, Maelzel, still leaving the doors and drawer open, rolls the Automaton entirely round, and exposes the back of the Turk by lifting up the drapery. A door about ten inches square is thrown open in the loins of the figure, and a smaller one also in the left thigh. The interior of the figure, as seen through these apertures, appears to be crowded with machinery. In general, every spectator is now thoroughly satisfied of having beheld and completely ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... helmet, throwing him forward on to his face. Then there was a heavy blow on his back; and it was well for him that he had on backpiece as well as breastplate, or the flesh would have been torn from his shoulder to his loins. As the blow fell there was an angry roar. For a moment he felt crushed by a weight which fell upon him. This was suddenly removed, and he heard a crash far below as the bear, pierced to the heart by the Arab's spear, fell over the precipice. ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty

... concerned as a much-interested witness, in old times.... For the rest, the journey, amid ice and snow, was not only troublesome in the extreme, but he got a life-long gout by it [and no profit to speak of]; having sunk, once, on thin ice, sledge and he, into a half-frozen stream, and got wetted to the loins, splashing about in such cold manner,—happily not quite drowned." The indefatigable Nussler; working still, like a very artist, wherever ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... there was the steep hill beside the fall to climb, alternately soft and slippery, now a slope of glass and now a treacherous drift of yielding feathers; it was a road set on end. But Pichou flattened his back and strained his loins and dug his toes into the snow and would not give back an inch. When the rest of the team balked the long whip slashed across their backs and recalled them to their duty. At last their leader topped the ridge, and the others struggled after him. Before them stretched the great dead-water ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke

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

... among them; or rather, he had drawn apart from the rest, and stood at the platform's far end, leaning on his gun, an innocent, wild-animal look in his restless eyes, and a slumberous agility revealed in his strong, supple loins. The station-agent went to him, and with abrupt questions and assertions, to which the man replied in low, grave monosyllables, bought his game,—as he might have done two hours before, but—an Acadian can wait. There was some trouble to make exact change, and the agent, saying "Hold on, I'll ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... for our peace and happiness, and mentally girded up my loins for wakeful nights of walking. No such troubles followed. We used separate rooms, and she kept the Pink Person in hers. Occasionally he made remarks in the night, but not for long. He was well, she was well—things went along very ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... Thus shalt thou speak unto this people that spake unto thee, saying, Thy father made our yoke heavy, but make thou it lighter unto us; thus shalt thou say unto them, My little finger shall be thicker than my father's loins. 11. And now whereas my father did lade you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke: my father hath chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions. 12. So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam the third day, as the king had appointed, saying, 'Come to me again ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... segregation in the plumage colour. The white of the Silky was recessive, all the birds of the F1 generation being fully coloured. In the F2 generation there were two recessive white cocks which when mature showed slight yellow colour across the loins. These two were mated with coloured hens, and in later generations all the recessives instead of being pure white, like the Silky, had reddish-brown pigment distributed as ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham

... loins to deliver a crushing reply, when Nikhil came back. Chandranath Babu rose, and looking towards Bee, said: "Let me go now, my little mother, I have some work to ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore

... misfortune was their preservation—for when the mattress came down, it came down upon Snarleyyow. The animal contrived to clear his loins, or he would have perished; but he could not clear his long mangy tail, which was now caught and firmly fixed in a new species of trap, the widow's broadest proportions having firmly secured him ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat

... overcoat by day and a blanket at night. The men wear a coarse, unbleached cotton shirt and cotton drawers reaching to the knees, leaving legs and feet bare. The women wear a loose cotton chemise and a colored skirt wrapped about the loins, the legs, feet, and arms being bare. They supply the town with poultry, charcoal, eggs, pottery, mats, baskets, and a few vegetables, often trotting thirty miles over hills and plains with a load of one ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou

... these machines are put aside, and the fourth contrivance is used. In this, the mechanism consists of a framework with very light and soft bandages, made with the plumage and down of birds. With these bandages the child's head, knees, elbows, wrists, shoulders, and loins are gently bound. The framework to which the bandages are attached has a projection from every point, on which the child, in case of accident, can possibly fall, and he is thus effectually protected; for, as the projection allows of his falling only slightly out ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)

... 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 closed the ring of white civilization ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall

... there are infinite things, any one may convince himself who believes that God is a Man; for, being a Man, He has a body and every thing pertaining to it, that is, a face, breast, abdomen, loins and feet; for without these He would not be a Man. And having these, He also has eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and tongue; also the parts within man, as the heart and lungs, and their dependencies, all of which, taken together, make man to be a man. In a created man these ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg

... loins such master men and women have sprung should have bred also the festering spawn of human vermin that litters many of the mean streets of London, aye, and the seats in its parks and gardens, is a tragic humiliation; an indictment, too, as I see it. Charity may cover a multitude ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... chance of a second shot. The first cow had fallen dead almost where she stood. The second we found at the foot of the hill, also with two bullet wounds behind the shoulder. The tongues, humps, and tender loins, with some other choice morsels, were soon cut off and packed, and we returned to camp with a grand supply of beef for ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... or two of quilted cloth, about six feet by four, or a mat. One piece wrapped round their loins, and another over their shoulders, make a complete dress. But the men, for the most part, are in a manner naked, wearing nothing but a slip of cloth betwixt their legs, each end of which is fastened to a cord or ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook

... of the roof were hammocks of net-work, in which the men were lazily swinging. One or two of those who were awake were fashioning arrow-heads out of hard wood. The men and children were entirely naked, with the exception of the blue lap or cloth for the loins; the women in their blue petticoat and braided hair were scraping the root of the cassava tree into a trough of bark; it was then put into a long press of matting, which expresses the poisonous juice; the dry farina is finally baked ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various

... mind, and nerves not to be broken with labor,—a man who could spend twenty years in one pursuit. Think of a man like the universal patriarch in Milton (who had drawn up before him in his prophetic vision the whole series of the generations which were to issue from his loins): a man capable of placing in review, after having brought together from the East, the West, the North, and the South, from the coarseness of the rudest barbarism to the most refined and subtle civilization, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... those great shovel-like claws of his. Now he rears himself again; straddles wide on his hind-feet, fixing the mighty claws deep in the ground; plants himself firmly on his huge tail, as on the third foot of a tripod, and once more grasps the tree. The enormous hind-quarters, the limbs and the loins, the broad pelvis and thick spinal cord, supplying abundant nervous energy to the swelling muscles inserted in the ridged and keeled bones, all come into play as a point d'appui for the Herculean effort." [Gosse's ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... upon them; but which, when adverse fortune puts their responsibility to the test, may prove utterly worthless, and be traced only by losses and disappointments. Such a blind reliance on authority may doubtless be more easy and more free from care, than it is to gird up the loins of our mind, and engage in toilsome spiritual labour. But with a view to our own ultimate safety, wisdom bids us look to our foundations in time, and assure ourselves {9} of them; admonishing us that if they are unsound, the spiritual edifice reared upon them, however pleasing ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler

... closing years of the century behold a wonderful unity and an extraordinary advancement of the whole Dominion in all its great interests. And the man, if such there be, who was born on this soil and sprung from such an ancestry as the early colonial settlers and United Empire Loyalists, or from the loins of settlers of a later generation, who is not proud of his country and of being called a British American, is unworthy of his race and the land of his birth, and unworthy of having his name classed with that of the noble Iroquois (Paul ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith

... thing and what with another, I would abide there no longer and took myself off. When I came away, their bailiff besought me, an I could lay my hand on any one apt unto that service, to send the man to him, and I promised it him; but may God make him sound of the loins as he whom I shall get him, else will I send him none at all!' Masetto, hearing this, was taken with so great a desire to be with these nuns that he was all consumed therewith, judging from Nuto's words that he might avail to compass somewhat of that which he desired. ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... gold and adorned with celestial unguents and smeared with fragrant sandal paste, began to tremble. And in consequence of the weight of her bosoms, she was forced to slightly stoop forward at every step, bending her waist exceedingly beautiful with three folds. And her loins of faultless shape, the elegant abode of the god of love, furnished with fair and high and round hips and wide at their lower part as a hill, and decked with chains of gold, and capable of shaking the saintship ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... diadem; round the loins of each was a graven belt, graven with many and mighty signs; and the foot of each was on a burning ball, and the right arm dropped over the knee as they bent down from their thrones; they moved not a limb or feature, save the finger of the right hand, which ever and anon moved slowly, ...
— The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil • E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham

... and Miss Meechim come up to us and broke off the conversation. Japan boatmen jest wear a cloth round their loins, and some of 'em had a little square of matting fastened by a rope round their necks to keep ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley

... reign: At his rising the spear and the throne rejoiced, * The gazelle, the ostrich, The men of main:[FN465] Mount him not on the paps, for right soon he'll show * That to throne on the war steed's loins he's fain: And wean him from sucking of milk, for soon * A sweeter drink, the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... myself. "What is this?" said one old fellow to Malak, stroking my face with his horny, grimy palm. "I never saw anything like it before." Most of the men were clothed in dirty, discoloured rags. The women wore simply a cloth tied loosely over the loins, while male and female children fourteen or fifteen years old ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt

... could not rob him of the fact of his position. Lord Brock could not ask him to resign because the Jupiter had written against him; nor was Lord Brock the man to desert a new colleague for such a reason. So Harold Smith girded his loins, and went about the duties of the Petty Bag with new zeal. "Upon my word, the Jupiter is right," said young Robarts to himself, as he finished his fourth dozen of private notes explanatory of everything in and about the Petty Bag Office. Harold Smith required that his private ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope

... than the beasts with whom he had long consorted. Finding she ran so quickly round a table that he could not catch her, and that she was strong enough to break away from him twice, he despaired of ravishing her alive, and dealt her a terrible sword-thrust in the loins, thinking that, if fear and force had not brought her to yield, pain ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... stories enough of Wildairs Hall and its master to undertake his mission with a quaking soul. To have refused to obey any behest of his patron would have cost him his living, and knowing this beyond a doubt, he was forced to gird up his loins and gather together all the little courage he could muster to beard the ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... wide world yet there rang A mightier summons! O Thou who from the side Of Athens and the loins of Casar sprang, Strike, Europe, with half the coming world allied For those ideals for which, since Homer sang, The hosts of thirty centuries ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke

... after I got to Switzerland, by dint of incessant inquiries and correspondence I found out the name of a pastor who lived in a sufficiently healthy place and who talked German. So I girded up my loins and went to visit him. "Sprechen Sie Englisch, mein Herr?" I asked. "Nein" was the reply. As I scarcely knew a word of German I was in a considerable fix. But I found out that the Pfarrer spoke "Lateinisch" and could read English a little when it was written. So I went up to his study and ...
— Letters to His Friends • Forbes Robinson

... fundament, buttocks, seat, rump, breech; ridge. Associated Words: supine, resupine, resupination, dorsigerous, dorsiferous, crick, dorsiparous, dos-a-dos, tergiferous, lumbago, notalgia, lumbar, aitchbone, loins, dorsicumbent. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... pearls on their braided locks—they were beautiful ladies. Their lords were depicted in steel armour, or in costly mantles trimmed with squirrels' fur, and wearing blue ruffs; the sword was buckled round the thigh, and not round the loins. Johanne's own portrait would hang at some future day on that wall, and what would her noble husband be like? Yes, she thought of this, and she said this in low accents to herself. I heard her when I rushed through the long corridor into the ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen

... Mesopotamia of Syria, and was come into Bethel, and blessed him saying: Thou shalt no more be called Jacob but Israel shall be thy name, and called him Israel, and said to him: I am God Almighty, grow and multiply, folks and peoples of nations shall come of thee, kings shall come of thy loins. The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I shall give to thee and thy ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells

... like which the populous North Poured never from her frozen loins to pass Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous sons Came like a deluge on the South and spread Beneath Gibraltar to the ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... coast were well made, far in advance of anything they had seen before, and the grotesque carving and ornamental work was admirably executed. The dresses warn were usually two cloak-shaped garments, one warn round the shoulders, the other round the loins, and were made of a substance like hemp, some being very fine. Banks had purchased something like them at Rio de Janeiro, for which he gave thirty-six shillings, thinking it cheap, but these were as fine, if not ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson

... the anchorite bowed his head, And girded his loins and went away. He rented a cavern not far from a tavern, And tippled by night ...
— A line-o'-verse or two • Bert Leston Taylor

... mountain,[5] on top of which a dense forest.[6] The policeman was furnished with a helmet, a gorget, and a cloak.[7] The two vagrants, who went along with the policeman quite peaceably, had tied to their loins sack-like aprons.[8] A road led from the church to the mountain. This road was overgrown on each side with grass and brushwood, which became thicker and thicker as it reached the height of the mountain, where it spread out ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud

... she saw men bringing up the cargo from the quay; and when she came back from Mass, there, at the door of Orme's warehouse, was Orme himself talking to a stranger who had foreign clothes on him, a gold chain round his loins, from which hung a goodly knife in a sheath, and rings in his ears. Gudrid, being well brought up, looked neither to the right nor left, but dipped her head to her foster-father as she went by. She had on her sea-blue gown, and a blue silk handkerchief knotted in her hair. The handkerchief ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett

... afterwards a reputation as a physician which was unbounded. One illustration of his sagacity in diagnosis will suffice. A patient of two famous court physicians at Madrid had a big and wonderful tumour on the loins. It would have been easily recognized in these days as an aneurismal tumour, but it greatly puzzled the two doctors. Vesalius was therefore consulted, and said, "There is a blood-vessel dilated; that tumour is full of blood." They ...
— Fathers of Biology • Charles McRae

... a stern and savage countenance; the marks on his face showed that he was from one of the barbarous tribes in Africa, and claimed that country as his native land; his only covering was a girdle around his loins, made of skins of wild beasts which he had killed; his only token of authority among those that he led, was a pair of epaulettes made from the tail of a fox, and tied to his shoulder by a cord. Brought ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown

... me in paradise.'—It teaches us, that we ought not to boast of to-morrow, since we know not what a day or an hour may bring forth.—It teaches us, that time is short, and that life is the only period for preparation and hope.—It teaches us, that we ought to be prepared,—have our loins girt, and our lamps burning; for we know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of Man cometh.—It teaches us, that we ought to number our days, and apply our hearts to heavenly wisdom.—It teaches us, that we ought not to put off the day of repentance; because for ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall

... were somewhat lighter of colour and slighter of build than the negro, while their black hair hung down to their shoulders in crisp curls. They were naked, save for a skin apron girt about their loins; and by way of ornament they wore necklaces composed of the teeth and claws of animals and the beaks of birds strung upon thin strips of hide. They also all wore bits of bone thrust through ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood

... that may have been a too liberal estimate. Tom at last declared that he couldn't stand the excitement any longer; that his brain reeled and his eyes ached; and that he was going to find a quiet spot far from the dizzy whirl. So they adjourned to the grocery and butcher shop and talked learnedly of loins and shoulders and ribs. And Clint dragged what he alluded to as a "brisket" into the conversation to the confusion of the others, who had never heard of it and didn't believe in it anyway. Tom said Clint meant "biscuit" and that this ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour

... been stripped from his body and divided among four soldiers. He now hangs naked upon the cross save a small strip of cloth knotted about his loins, the loose ends hanging at one side. The body is somewhat slender and delicately modelled, but firm and supple as of one in the fulness of manhood. The hair falls in dishevelled locks about the face, and a mysterious light shines ...
— Van Dyck - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll

... similar fashion. The undertakings which they nobly achieved and handed down to you with glory you will hand on to others. The possessions which they acquired and left to you will leave to others sprung from your own loins. Surely the best of all things is a woman who is temperate, domestic, a good house-keeper, a rearer of children; one to gladden you when in health, to tend you when sick; to be your partner in good fortune, to console you in misfortune; to restrain the frenzied nature of the youth and to temper the ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio

... you take in your address?" Both sides agree upon a certain time, which usually proves too short, but which is acquiesced in with alacrity because each side thinks their case is so plain and convincing that it will not be difficult to explain. The lawyer girds up his loins, the court-room quiets, the struggle of conflicting evidence is over, the clients and witnesses retire from the foreground, the other counsel sits down and the lawyer ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells

... works are at length emerging from oblivion." With the growth of Butler's reputation "Life and Habit" has had much to do. It was the first and is undoubtedly the most important of his writings on evolution. From its loins, as it were, sprang his three later books, "Evolution Old and New," "Unconscious Memory," and "Luck or Cunning", which carried its arguments further afield. It will perhaps interest Butler's readers if I here quote a ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler

... time scarcely a name to it. Here I sit, hale in wind and limb, and old age creeps on me kindly, telling me that no man is necessary. And yet, if God should come and lay a command on me—some task that a blind man might undertake—I am at God's service. I sit with my loins girt and my soul, I hope, shriven. That is my sermon to you, young sir: a clean breast and no baggage. I bid you welcome to Minden ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... the most noted sovereign of Portugal, and grandson of that rugged Englishman from whose loins have sprung so many royal lines, he was fitted by descent and training for the heroic part which he performed. Distinguished for military achievement before he had come to man's estate, urged by four of the leading ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various

... weird red and flickering flames. In their depths, cast in black and red shadows, toiled half-guessed figures; from their depths, mounting a single steep plank, came an unbroken procession of natives, naked save for a wisp of cloth around the loins. They trod closely on each other's heels, carrying each his basket atop his head or on one shoulder, mounted a gang-plank, discharged their loads into the side of the ship, and descended again to the depths by way of another plank. The lights flickered across their dark faces, their gleaming teeth ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White

... competition. Karaiti sat in the front row close to the singers, where we were summoned (I suppose in honour of Queen Victoria) to join him. A strong breathless heat reigned under the iron roof, and the air was heavy with the scent of wreaths. The singers, with fine mats about their loins, cocoa-nut feathers set in rings upon their fingers, and their heads crowned with yellow leaves, sat on the floor by companies. A varying number of soloists stood up for different songs; and these bore the chief part in the music. But the full force of the companies, even ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... getting back to his seat, for his elbows were jerked at every step because of the glass he held in his hands, and he even spilt three-fourths on the shoulders of a Rouen lady in short sleeves, who feeling the cold liquid running down to her loins, uttered cries like a peacock, as if she were being assassinated. Her husband, who was a millowner, railed at the clumsy fellow, and while she was with her handkerchief wiping up the stains from ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert

... exercitations. But notwithstanding these symptoms of inferior taste, and a humour of contradicting his betters upon passages of dubious construction in Latin authors, I did grievously lament when Peter Pattieson was removed from me by death, even as if he had been the offspring of my own loins. And in respect his papers had been left in my care (to answer funeral and death-bed expenses), I conceived myself entitled to dispose of one parcel thereof, entitled, "Tales of my Landlord," to one cunning in the trade (as it is called) of bookselling. He was a mirthful man, of small stature, ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott

... that the whole is formed at the same time. Aristotle, as the keel of a ship is first made, so the first part that is formed is the loins. Alcmaeon, the head, for that is the commanding and the principal part of the body. The physicians, the heart, in which are the veins and arteries. Some think the great toe is first ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... simplified logic which will strike certain types of mind as incontrovertible, were fully attuned to the sentiments of the Jewish masses which were standing with "girded loins," ready for their exodus from, the new Egypt. The emigration societies formed in the beginning of 1882 counted in their ranks many advocates of Palestinian colonization. Bitter literary feuds were waged between ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... stood feeble women in ill-fitting clothes, with tired children in their aching arms, a painful sag in their weakened loins. Bradley marvelled to think why such festivals had ever seemed mirthful and happy to him. He wondered if there used to be so many tired faces at the Grange picnics in Iowa. Were the farmers really less comfortable and happy, or had he ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland

... round the waist. Although the tope or robe, loosely but gracefully arranged around the body, appears to be the whole of the costume, the women wear beneath this garment a thin blue cotton cloth tightly bound round the loins, which descends to a little above the knee; beneath this, next to the skin, is the last garment, the rahat—the latter is the only clothing of young girls, and may be either perfectly simple or adorned ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker

... honour. I sometimes think he is hurt in the loins somehow—he don't take to his leaps kindly, and he always tries to bite when we ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... briefly the most common causes of Seminal Disease. There are a few that we have not mentioned: Blows on the Head, Loins (Small of the Back), Testicles, &c.; Weakness caused by prolonged illness, fevers, &c.; Malaria, Consumption, &c.; the abuse of Tobacco, Opium, Alcohol and Chloral, &c., &c.; but these are less common and less important. ...
— Manhood Perfectly Restored • Unknown

... I can, all she can give me, from Jane. She can't explain herself much; she's all intuition; her processes are obscure; it's the spirit that swoops down and catches her up. But I must study her reverently in her works. Yes, you've defied me before, but now my loins are girded: I declare I'll read one of them—I really will: I'll put it ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James

... a leafy bough about his loins, and rose up and went towards the maidens, who were frightened to see him (for he was wild-looking), and fled hither and thither. But Nausicaa stood and fled ...
— The Story Of The Odyssey • The Rev. Alfred J. Church

... the 6th June 1759, for a Complaint of her Bladder. The Account she gave of herself was, that, about Christmas 1758, she had parted with some Gravel; and about fourteen Days before coming to the Hospital, she was seized with a violent Pain in her Back and Loins, attended with a Sickness and Nausea; and very soon after complained of a violent Pain in the lower Part of her Belly, and with a perpetual Inclination to make Water, though she felt a sharp Pain and Difficulty in doing it; and that these ...
— An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany • Donald Monro

... the one above the other. Jesus lay silent without moving. On his head was the crown of thorns, from which a little blood trickled over his brow. His hands and his feet bled a little, but the rest of his body was pale and colorless, a light cloth only being cast around his loins. ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead

... the reforming pope was thicker than the Puritan's loins; where Calvin had chastised with whips Sixtus V chastised with scorpions. Adrian VI, the first Catholic Reformer after Luther, could not away with "those idols of the heathen," the ancient statues. Clement VII for a moment restored ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... bodies. The faces of many amongst those leaders of troops were like those of insects and worms. The mouths of many amongst them were like those of diverse beasts of prey. Some had many arms and some many heads. The arms of some resembled trees, and the heads of some were on their loins. The faces of some were tapering like the bodies of snakes. Many amongst them had their abodes on diverse kinds of plants and herbs. Some were clad in rags, some in diverse kinds of bones, some were diversely clad, and some were adorned in diverse kinds of garlands and diverse kinds ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... 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 ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady

... evening they began drilling. It was under the lawn, in front of the church. Gorju, in a blue smock-frock, with a neckcloth around his loins, went through the movements in an automatic fashion. When he gave the orders, his voice ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert

... represented as men from the head to the loins, while the remainder of the body was that of a horse. The ancients were too fond of a horse to consider the union of his nature with man's as forming a very degraded compound, and accordingly the Centaur is the only one of the fancied monsters of antiquity to which ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... of the Shaddock Grove, the children perceived a negro woman beneath the plantains which shaded their habitation. She appeared almost wasted to a skeleton, and had no other garment than a shred of coarse cloth thrown across her loins. She flung herself at Virginia's feet, who was preparing the family breakfast, and cried, 'My good young lady, have pity on a poor slave. For a whole month I have wandered amongst these mountains, half dead with hunger, and often pursued by the hunters ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre

... of their limbs, the Australian ranks far below the European; nay, even below the Negro, and approaches far nearer to the simiae than any of the other races of mankind. Perron, in his voyage, made an estimate of the average strength of the arms and loins of the Australian, and of some French and English; this is the result ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor

... Lord is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe" (Prov. 18:10), is a proverb under a beautiful figure. The foolish young men counselled Rehoboam to say to the Israelites: "My little finger shall be thicker than my father's loins." 1 Kings 12:10. This is not a proverb, because it contains only the figurative statement of a particular fact. But if we change the form, and say: The little finger of a foolish ruler is thicker than the loins of a wise ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows

... broughtest us into the snare; Thou laidest afflictions upon our loins; Thou hast suffered our enemies To ride ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac

... Jesus Christ as its pattern. It proposeth no lower pattern for imitation than to be conform to his image, (he that is begotten again into a lively hope, by the resurrection of Christ from the dead, girds up the loins of his mind, which are the affections of his soul, lest by falling flat upon the earth, he be hindered in running the race set before him, as looking to the forerunner his pattern,) in this girdle of hope, that he ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)

... by side, They took their rest. But when the child of dawn, Aurora, rosy-fingered, looked abroad, Ulysses put his vest and mantle on; The nymph too, in a robe of silver white, Ample, and delicate, and beautiful, Arrayed herself, and round about her loins Wound a fair golden girdle, drew a veil Over her head, and planned to send away Magnanimous Ulysses. She bestowed A heavy axe, of steel, and double-edged, Well fitted to the hand, the handle wrought Of olive-wood, ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant

... withdraw, after having promised that I would inform the Signora Serafina of my friend's condition, when her companion, who had risen from table and girded his loins apparently for the onset, grasped me gently by the arm, and led me before the row of statuettes. "I perceive by your conversation, signore, that you are a patron of the arts. Allow me to request your honourable attention for these modest products of my own ingenuity. ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James

... the chair and in the semicircle watched this scene more than what was going on in the army. The King often put his hat on the top of the chair in order to get his head in to speak; and this continual exercise tired his loins very much. Monseigneur was on horseback in the plain with the young Princes. It was about five o'clock in the afternoon, and the weather was as brilliant as ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... is en town agin! If she was mine, I'll be hen-fired if I wouldn't break her down in de lines (loins)—good as dat ...
— The Mule-Bone: - A Comedy of Negro Life in Three Acts • Zora Hurston and Langston Hughes

... the Ute came down the valley on the west side of the mesa, doing great harm again, and drove off the Walpi flocks andiron Then the Hano got ready for war; they tied buckskins around their loins, whitened their legs with clay, and stained their body and arms with dark red earth (ocher). They overtook the Ute near Wpho (about 3 miles north from Hano), but the Ute had driven the flocks up the ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff



Words linked to "Loins" :   region, area, torso, body, groin, body part, pubes, mons veneris, mons pubis, inguen, mons, trunk



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