Part 496

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.

Shak.

Their breasts girded with golden girdles.

Rev. xv. 6.

2. The zodiac; also, the equator. [Poetic] Bacon.

From the world's girdle to the frozen pole.

Cowper.

That gems the starry girdle of the year.

Campbell.

3. (Jewelry) The line ofgreatest circumference of a brilliant-cut diamond, at which it is grasped by the setting. See Illust. of Brilliant. Knight.

4. (Mining) A thin bed or stratum of stone. Raymond.

5. (Zoˆl.) The clitellus of an earthworm.

Girdle bone (Anat.), the sphenethmoid. See under Sphenethmoid. -- Girdle wheel, a spinning wheel. -- Sea girdle (Zoˆl.), a ctenophore. See Venus's girdle, under Venus. -- Shoulder, Pectoral, ∧ Pelvic, girdle. (Anat.) See under Pectoral, and Pelvic. -- To have under the girdle, to have bound to one, that is, in subjection.

Gir"dle, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Girdled (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Girdling (?).] 1. To bind with a belt or sash; to gird. Shak.

2. To inclose; to environ; to shut in.

Those sleeping stones, That as a waist doth girdle you about.

Shak.

3. To make a cut or gnaw a groove around (a tree, etc.) through the bark and alburnum, thus killing it. [U. S.]

Gir"dler (?), n. 1. One who girdles.

2. A maker of girdles.

3. (Zoˆl.) An American longicorn beetle (Oncideres cingulatus) which lays its eggs in the twigs of the hickory, and then girdles each branch by gnawing a groove around it, thus killing it to provide suitable food for the larvÊ.

Gir"dle*stead (?), n. [Girdle + stead place.]

1. That part of the body where the girdle is worn. [Obs.]

Sheathed, beneath his girdlestead.

Chapman.

2. The lap. [R.]

There fell a flower into her girdlestead.