Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Girdle   /gˈərdəl/   Listen
Girdle

verb
(past & past part. girdled; pres. part. girdling)
1.
Cut a girdle around so as to kill by interrupting the circulation of water and nutrients.  Synonym: deaden.
2.
Put a girdle on or around.  Synonym: gird.



Related searches:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Girdle" Quotes from Famous Books



... round and too rosy. The dreadful justice of photography would have had no mercy on her; and the sculptors of classical Greece would have bowed her regretfully out of their studios. Admitting all this, and more, the girdle round Miss Milroy's waist was the girdle of Venus nevertheless; and the passkey that opens the general heart was the key she carried, if ever a girl possessed it yet. Before Allan had picked up his second handful of flowers, Allan ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... combined into one. The column which figures in the relief above the gate is absent from the gem, but is found on another specimen from Mycenae, where the animals, however, are winged griffins. Fig. 41 has only a standing man, of the wasp-waisted figure and wearing the girdle with which other representations have ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell

... to him was a venerable man with a snowy beard of immense length; an image of awful purity and severity. He was dressed in a coarse robe, with three large keys suspensed from his girdle. He might have filled one's idea of an ancient porter of a city gate; such spiritual cities, I should say, as ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu

... her girdle another small key, which she inserted in a keyhole in the centre of a massive lock. The great bolt seemed wonderfully hung, for the moment the small key was turned, the bolts of the great lock moved noiselessly and the iron doors swung open. ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker

... secret it held in its dead heart. Yes, the box was there! The box in which lay the outbursts of a girl's fancy and imaginings. With a mischievous laugh Cynthia removed the old letters and put them in the bag that hung from a girdle at her waist. Then she walked on to the old Walden Place. There a shock awaited her. What had happened? The crumbling walls had fallen in many places; but there were props and scaffoldings, too! Sandy had begun ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock

... lead 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 ...
— Music and Other Poems • Henry van Dyke

... trifle!" That the action had discovered the gash to be wider than he thought, he saw in the countenance of his wife! She turned deadly pale. "Marion," said he, "to convince you how causeless your fears are, you shall cure me yourself; and with no other surgery than your girdle!" ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... at 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 Sewall began to think that his father-in-law had got possession of all the money in the Massachusetts treasury. But ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... formed his escort to remain at the fortress on the dune, and, pointing out Ledscha by a wave of the hand, he whispered to Hermon: "By the girdle of Aphrodite! she is terribly beautiful! For whom is the Medea probably brewing in ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... was on a morn when we were thrang, The kirn it croon'd, the cheese was making, And bannocks on the girdle baking, When ane at the door chapp't loud and lang. Yet the auld gudewife, and her mays sae tight, Of a' this bauld din took sma' notice I ween; For a chap at the door in braid daylight Is no like a chap that's ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... had now turned into the Forum, which was thronged with the gay and elegant youth of Rome. "I can tell you more," continued Flaminius; "somebody was remarking to the Consul yesterday how loosely a certain acquaintance of ours tied his girdle. 'Let him look to himself;' said Cicero, 'or the state may find a tighter girdle for ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... I ventured not to exploit with Madame, recalling how this same difference of faith had come between us two with its dread shadow—a red flush sprang into the priest's thin, wasted cheeks, and I could see how tightly his hands clinched about the crucifix at his girdle. ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish

... white quill. The embroidery about the neck of her Indian robe is of pearls. The basket which she carries should be white, with a motif of rich blue and scarlet. She wears a tan (dressed deerskin) girdle, heavily embroidered in red beads. Her stockings and moccasins are tan-colored also, the moccasins embroidered in scarlet. The ends of her braids are bound in scarlet and gold. White canton flannel, skilfully ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay

... executed. Many of the inferior sort were put to death by martial law:[****] the vicar of St. Thomas, one of the principal incendiaries, was hanged on the top of his own steeple, arrayed in his Popish weeds, with his beads at his girdle.[v] ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume

... upon your head, Margaret, Put gold upon your hair, And gold upon your girdle-band, And ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang

... be angry with her, and fought with her, and tore her raiment. And the royal maiden seized a girdle, a strong embroidered silk cord that she wore round her waist, and did hurt enow to the knight. She bound his hands and his feet, and carried him to a nail, and hung him on the wall. She forbade him to touch her because he disturbed ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown

... the same moment with an equal fury, and but for my manoeuvre both had certainly been spitted. As it was, he did no more than strike my shoulder, while my scissor plunged below the girdle into a mortal part; and that great bulk of a man, falling from his whole ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... repeated, they called him My-boy, sometimes Notchy, for his whole bald head was notched with scars. His real name was Rembajlo, but no one knew his coat of arms; he called himself the Warden, because years ago he had held that office in the castle. And he still wore a great bunch of keys at his girdle, on a band with a silver tassel, though he had nothing to open with them, for the gates of the castle stood gaping wide. However he had found two folding doors, which he had repaired and set up at his own expense, and ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz

... Norton's Point he was obliged to go in to see how the story was progressing. It was no nearer its end, as far as he could judge. Corinna's Dorothy Dolores was donning a party dress of pink messaline with a panne velvet girdle. The children's interest flagged and they drifted away, but there were always ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner

... out in most extravagant manner. From my point of vantage some three hundred feet above them, I could watch them, myself unseen. Each carried a sheaf of spears, woommera, and shield, and in their girdle of string a number of short throwing-sticks. Round their waists were hanging sporrans formed from tufts of hair, probably similar to those we found at Family Well that were made from the tufts from the ends of bandicoots' tails; their bodies were painted in ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie

... behind him, called a crow. This 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

... Sappho, go— I hate your hands that beat so full of life, Go, lest my hatred hurt you. I shall die, But you will live to love and love again. He might have loved some other spring than this; I should have kept my life—I let it go. He would not love me now tho' Cypris bound Her girdle round me. I am Death's, not Love's. Go from me, Sappho, back to ...
— Helen of Troy and Other Poems • Sara Teasdale

... this was plain on the lord deputy's coming home, when I did come into her presence. She chafed much, walked fastly to and fro, looked with discomposure in her visage; and I remember, she catched my girdle when I kneeled to her, and swore, 'By God's son I am no queen, that man is above me;—who gave him command to come here so soon? I did send him on other business.' It was long before more gracious ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... voyage; and then it coursed over central America, before a Pacific voyage brought it back to its point of departure after thirteen days; then the dust started again, and was traced around another similar circuit, while it was even tracked for a considerable time in placing the third girdle round the earth. Strange blue suns and green moons and other mysterious phenomena marked the progress of this vast volcanic cloud. At last the cloud began to lose its density, the dust spread more widely over the tropics, became diffused through the temperate ...
— Time and Tide - A Romance of the Moon • Robert S. (Robert Stawell) Ball

... simple selfishness of young love so absorbed them that they could scarcely realise the existence of other persons than themselves. They were to be married, and to depart for fairyland as soon as possible. Both were fond of travel, and when they took ship together their intention was to girdle the world at leisure, if they felt so inclined. They could do anything they chose, and were so blissfully sufficient for each other that there was no reason why they should not ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... Helma made a girdle of brakes for herself, and a dandelion wreath for her hair. She wove a dear little cap of star flowers for Ivra, and a chain of them for her neck. Eric crowned himself with bloodroot and contrived grass ...
— The Little House in the Fairy Wood • Ethel Cook Eliot

... my own room. Surely that is Zaldu, my pet slave, with big drops on her black face.... And father, mother, kneeling either side. And who are you with rapt face and star-deep eyes, thick hair with Delphic wreaths, and in purple gown and golden girdle? Are you a god? ...
— The Flutter of the Goldleaf; and Other Plays • Olive Tilford Dargan and Frederick Peterson

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

... became greatly frightened. The spot they had reached was a green space within a girdle of hollies, and in front of them rose an ornamental cottage. This was the building which Ethelberta had visited earlier in the day: it was the Petit ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... of fish of all kinds. But when he got home at night and told his story, how he had got all that fish, his wife fell a-weeping and moaning, and was beside herself for the promise which her husband had made, for she said, "I bear a babe under my girdle." ...
— East of the Sun and West of the Moon - Old Tales from the North • Peter Christen Asbjornsen

... met midmost Dukala, in a place of level barley fields new cut with the media luna. Brilliant poppies and irises stained the meadows on all sides, and orchards whose cactus hedges, planted for defence, were now aflame with blood-red flowers, became a girdle of beauty as well as strength. The khalifa rode a swiftly-ambling mule, a beast of price, his yellow slippers were ostentatiously new, and his ample girth proclaimed the wealthy man in a land where all the poor are thin. "Peace," was his salutation to M'Barak, who led the ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan

... not one of whom, at my time of life, was my match. My uncle was very much pleased when he heard of my gallantry; my cousin Nora brought brown paper and vinegar for my nose, and I went home that night with a pint of claret under my girdle, not a little proud, let me tell you, at having held my ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... rest, when I heard a noise of 'sh-'sh, among the dead leaves. I thought perhaps it was a wolf, so I stood very still. But soon there came past a tall man—oh! twice as tall as father—with a long red beard and a red tunic fastened with a silver girdle, from which hung a silver-handled knife. Behind him followed a great dog, which looked stronger than any wolf, or even a bear. But why are you so ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various

... irresistible fashion.... The colouring is not so much Giorgionesque as Giorgione's own—a widely different thing.... Wonderful touches which the imitative Giorgionesque painter would not have thought of are the girdle, a mauve-purple now, with a sharply emphasised golden fringe, and the sapphire-blue jewel in the brooch. Triumphs of execution, too, but not in the broad style of Venetian art in its fullest expansion, are the gleaming ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook

... infirmity, and in every respect lighter and more active. His dress was rich and grave, as became his age and rank, and, like his royal brother, he wore no arms of any kind, a case of small knives supplying at his girdle the place usually occupied by a dagger in absence ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... Diss, which contains, among a number of other interesting brasses, that of a lady clothed, like the former, in gown, mantle, barbe, and veil. This figure, however, shows cuffs; the gown is encircled with an ornamental girdle, and depending from the mantle on long cords ending in tassels. Underneath runs ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell

... Jesus Christ that would weaken at the sight of a chest that his mother Virgin Mary would show to remind him of his weak memory of God would forget; nor will he excuse himself of a wrong committed against a companion of the other sex on the pretext that he does not have with him the girdle of the Angelic Militia; much less will he believe that, in spite of a criminal life, he will be able to secure eternal salvation provided only he has taken the precaution of repeating at every turn the invocation of ...
— The Legacy of Ignorantism • T.H. Pardo de Tavera

... wind came down from the north, sent by the favour of the mighty enchantress Circe, and over the trackless sea they sped, where never furrow of mortal ship was seen before. After a long day's sail they came to the farther shore of the ocean stream, which surrounds the earth as with a girdle. There is the abode of the people called the Cimmerians, wrapped in shadow and mist; for never doth the sun look down upon them with his rays, neither when he climbs the starry sky, nor yet when he goeth down unto the place of his rest. And thus they dwell miserably ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell

... fortress or the captain of a ship; and indeed, as he looks from his windows, as from those of an anchored vessel, he sees a boundless level plain, which inspires him with just such sentiments of freedom and solemnity as are awakened by the sea. The trees that surround his house like a green girdle allow only a delicate broken light to enter it; boats freighted with merchandise glide noiselessly past his door; he does not hear the trampling of horses or the cracking of whips, or songs or street-cries; all the activities of the life that surrounds him are silent and ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis

... in a gown of ruby cashmere, and wore an expensive cap and slippers to match; the girdle was untied, leaving the rich chenille tassels to trail almost upon the ground, and the velvet fronts so elaborately embroidered were crushed rudely aside by his hands, which were thrust ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... Red Jacket was dressed with much taste, in the Indian costume throughout. He wore a blue dress, the upper garment cut after the fashion of a hunting shirt, with blue leggings, very neat moccasins, a red jacket, and a girdle of red about his waist. I have seldom seen a more dignified or noble looking body of men than the entire group. It seems, though no such impression was designed to be made by the terms of the invitation, that some indefinite expectation had been excited in their minds, ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard

... and lank like the common Indians. The colour of their skins, both of their faces and the rest of their body, is coal-black like that of the negroes of Guinea. They have no sort of clothes but a piece of the rind of a tree tied like a girdle about their waists, and a handful of long grass, or three or four small green boughs full of leaves thrust under their girdle to cover their nakedness. They. have no houses, but lie in the open air without covering, ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc

... century, for the Russian ambassador LAXMAN, who was highly esteemed by the Japanese, had worn a pig-tail and powdered hair, while Golovin and his companions had their hair unpowdered and cut short.[380] When it is warm the workmen wear only a small, generally light-blue, girdle round the waist and between the legs. Otherwise they are naked. They are thus seen to be in many cases strongly tattooed over the greater part of the body. I have not seen the women working naked. They perhaps do so at the warmest ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold

... a small hatchet in his girdle and a long sharp knife in his hand. With these he attacked the reeds and weeds, and in ten minutes or less had set the screw free. He soon reappeared on the rope-ladder, and Edgar, who had been attending to his lines, ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne

... trace of man's presence could be found there beyond the belt of rocks, amidst which arose the springs that were the chief, and indeed only attraction the island presented to the rough, hardy men by whom it had been visited. But within that stony girdle lay a landscape soft and lovely as any that arose within the tropical seas. There the plantain waved its leafy crown, the orange shed its rich perfume, and bore its golden fruit aloft upon the desert air, and the light, feathery foliage of the tamarind moved gracefully to the touch of ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh

... he seemed to carry weight, With leathern girdle braced; For all might see the bottle necks Still ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck

... are getting to business," said Jeffrey Stokes, as, lying his hand upon the knife at his girdle, he slipped between ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard

... the river in a rickety boat, and then plunged into the woods. He was a tall, well grown boy of fifteen or sixteen, with a beautiful oval face, long fair hair parted in the middle and hanging upon his shoulders, and a fine, manly, resolute expression. With his jacket, girdle, knee-breeches, and the high crowned and broad brimmed felt hat he wore, he reminded me strongly of the picture of Gustavus Vasa in his Dalecarlian disguise, in the cathedral of Upsala. He was a splendid walker, and quite put me, old pedestrian as I am, out of countenance. The ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor

... silhouette a mere stroke of a hard pencil, Miss Selene Coblenz measured up and down to America's Venus de Milo, whose chief curvature is of the spine. Slim-etched, and that slimness enhanced by a conscious kind of collapse beneath the blue-silk girdle that reached up half-way to her throat, hers were those proportions which strong women, eschewing the sweet-meat, would earn by the sweat of the ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst

... them was evidently of some consequence. His dress was, to a certain degree, Mahometan, but mixed up with Malay—he carried arms in his girdle and a spear in his hand; his turban was of printed chintz; and his deportment, like most persons of rank in that country, was courteous ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat

... ka jain spong Ear-ring kurneng ka shohshkor Apron shiliang ka jymphong Haversack jolonjwa [44] ka pla Cap pokhia ka tupia Girdle pun-poh u saipan Under Garment jain ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon

... "Girdle me with a strip of cloth for the road, so that if I fall in the field my pain may be lessened in having, when dying, the belt ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... Mot, in Paris;—it was an enchanting frock of embroidered white illusion, over pink illusion, over black illusion, under a short heavy tunic of silver spangles and threads. The yoke was of wonderful old lace, and there was a girdle of heavy pink cords, and silver clasps, to match the aigrette that was held by pink and silver cords in ...
— The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne • Kathleen Norris

... was very silent; the little towns and hamlets scattered beside Como, like clusters of white and rosy shells, dreamed on until thin music broke from their campaniles. Bell answered bell and made a girdle of harmony about the lake, floating along the water and ascending aloft until no louder than the song ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts

... graces, and urging the Colossians to put them on, Paul adds: "And above all these things, put on charity," or love, "which is the bond of perfectness" (Col. iii. 14). These graces were garments, and love was the girdle which bound and held them together; and so love is the bond that holds true ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle

... girdle and bracelets, formerly mentioned, the Popoes, or inhabitants of the Thousand Isles, wear a bit of stick, the size of a tobacco-pipe and the length of a finger, thrust through the gristle of the nose, which they think renders them terrible to their enemies, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... thankful. Let not us repine, or so much as think the gifts of God unequally dealt, if we see another abound with riches; when, as God knows, the cares that are the keys that keep those riches hang often so heavily at the rich man's girdle, that they clog him with weary days and restless nights, even when others sleep quietly. We see but the outside of the rich man's happiness: few consider him to be like the silk-worm, that, when she seems to play, is, at the very same time, spinning her own bowels, ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton

... plays of Etherege, Dryden, and Shadwell, a volume of Cowley, and some amorous songs, lay on the table; and not far from them were a loomask, pulvil purse, a pair of scented gloves, a richly-laced mouchoir, a manteau girdle, palatine tags, and a golden bodkin for ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... because it is adorned (compta) with such gifts. The lake lies in a shell-like valley, with white margins. Above rises a diadem of lofty mountains, their slopes studded with bright villas[765], a girdle of olives below, vineyards above, while a crest of thick chestnut-woods adorns the very summit of the hills. Streams of snowy clearness dash from the hill-sides into the lake. On the eastern side these unite to form the river Addua, so called because it contains the added ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... the leaves make the food of the tree, which goes down in the bark to the roots. The reason blight kills these trees is that it begins to girdle and sometimes does girdle the tree and destroys the connection between the leaves and the roots, so the roots eventually die. But by this method of inarching you restore that ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 44th Annual Meeting • Various

... ill-treatment by their superiors, stating that they received no pay, and even food was only occasionally sent to them at this outpost. Their tunics were in rags; each man carried a sword stuck in front through the girdle. Here, too, we had more inquiries about the young sahib, as messengers on horseback had been sent post-haste from Taklakot to warn the Gyanema officer not to let him penetrate into Hundes[15] by the Lumpiya Pass, should he attempt it. Their description of my supposed appearance was very ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... it good sport at first to mock at the Stranger's garb. As he stood there, lifted up above them on the rough bench, they could see every detail of the queer leather breeches that he wore underneath his long coat. His girdle with its alchemy buttons showed off grandly too, while the fine linen bands he wore at his neck gleamed out with dazzling whiteness against the dark branches of Sedbergh's ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin

... sides from the surrounding girdle of forts the searchlights swept the sky, and columns of weary soldiers tramped past me on that four-mile road that led into Strassburg. I kept as close to them as possible with some other pedestrians, labourers returning from the great ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin

... town. Robbers, frequently in the service of the lord of the land, infested every province. It was safest to don the coarse frieze tunic of the pilgrim, without pockets, sling your little wax tablets and stylus at your girdle, strap a wallet of bread and herbs and salt on your back, and laugh at the nervous folk who peeped out from their coaches over a hedge of pikes and daggers. Few monasteries refused a meal or a rough bed to the wandering scholar. ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... the will of Heaven, and to believe that the Providence which rules the world neglects the good and lets the evil prosper. In this unhappy spirit he was one day walking on the banks of the Euphrates, when he chanced to meet a venerable hermit, whose snowy beard descended to his girdle, and who carried in his hand a scroll which he was reading with attention. Zadig stopped, and made him a low bow. The hermit returned the salutation with an air so kindly, and so noble, that Zadig felt a curiosity to speak ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various

... Gilt at the tips, so sweetly doth it ring, And clasp the bosom that it serves to lace: Yea, and the belt, to such as understand, Bound round her waist, saith: Here I'd ever cling! What would my arms do in that girdle's place? ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... narrator, "'thou shalt return forthwith to thy palace, and the same night, when the Vetala Angi has eaten and drunk his fill, thou shalt in his presence lay the key upon the palm of thy left hand, thus—'" (here the Babu quietly took up a key hanging from the bunch attached to the warder's girdle, and laid it upon his left palm). "'Then shalt thou say to ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... mouth he quickly extracted his teeth and put them in his girdle. His face collapsed into wrinkles around his sunken mouth, and he began to sing the phrases of the priest and the responses of the assistant. The childish and tremulous voice acquired a grave sonorousness as it resounded over the watery expanse and was reproduced by the echoes from the rocks. ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

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

... free and fired his pistol. Lukashka fell, and blood began to flow from his stomach. He jumped up, but fell again, swearing in Russian and in Tartar. More and more blood appeared on his clothes and under him. Some Cossacks approached him and began loosening his girdle. One of them, Nazarka, before beginning to help, fumbled for some time, unable to put his sword in its sheath: it would not go the right way. The blade of ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy

... framed in green rushes, was the reflection of a high-born maiden dressed according to her rank. Clinging silk and jewelled girdle lent new grace to her lithesome form, while the mossy green of her velvet mantle brought out the rich coloring of her face as leaves bring out the glowing splendor of a rose. Gold was in the embroidery that stiffened her trailing skirts; gold was sewn into her gloves, and golden chains ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... substituted a fragment of paper, on which I had been figuring my accounts, for the paper received, from the dhobi, placing the former on the glowing charcoal embers and bestowing the latter in the security of my girdle. A curl of white smoke, a puff of flame, and the work of destruction was, to ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell

... of wisdom to pick up Champnell, because if there is a man who can be backed to find a needle in any amount of hay-stacks it is the great Augustus.—That horse has moved itself after all, because here we are. Now, cabman, don't go driving further on,—you'll have to put a girdle round the earth if you do; because you'll have to reach this point again before you get your fare.—This ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh

... chamber, where Elfric lies dying. I remember that that door was left unlocked, and perhaps I can save him. They are all feasting like hogs; they will not know, and if Ragnar meet me, why, he or I must die;" and he put his hand convulsively upon the sword which was dependent from his girdle. ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... the sermon was to children, and the subject was "Girdles." The East of this ancient India is the East to which the prophet spoke by parable and picture; and, following that time-worn path, the preacher pictured the parable of Jeremiah's linen girdle: the attention of the people was riveted upon him, and no one noticed what was happening on the mat at the end of the church. Only we, up at the front with all the other children, saw, without being able to stop it, the dreadful pantomime. For Chellalu, wholly absorbed and pleased ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael

... Berkeley Nightly I watch the West. There lies new San Francisco, Sea-maid in purple dressed, Wearing a dancer's girdle All to inflame desire: Scorning her days of ...
— General William Booth enters into Heaven and other Poems • Vachel Lindsay

... sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, she has seized upon these peripheral projections as if they were the handles on a pilot wheel, and by them she has steered the course of Asia ever since. These semi-detached outlyers of the continent have enabled her to stretch a girdle of European influences around the central core. Such influences, through the avenues of commerce, railway concessions, missionary propaganda, or political dominion, have permeated the accessible periphery and are slowly spreading thence into the interior. China and Persia have felt these influences ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple

... a cushion placed on a common native charpoy, or bed, in the verandah of a courtyard, was the last representative of the Great Mogul dynasty. There was nothing imposing in his appearance, save a long white beard which reached to his girdle. About middle height, and upwards of seventy years old, he was dressed in white, with a conical-shaped turban of the same colour and material, while at his back two attendants stood, waving over his head large fans of peacocks' ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths

... said Lydia. "And I suspect he's so cross with me that he hates to keep this engagement. But I don't care. I wish I had a new dress. But I've made the sleeves small in my organdy and made a new girdle. It looks as well as could be ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow

... envoys, at least in Lu, were hereditary in some families, just as other families provided successive generations of ministers. A Lu envoy to Tsin, who carried a very valuable gem- studded girdle with him, had very great pressure put upon him by a covetous Tsin minister who wanted the girdle. The envoy offered to give some silk instead, but he said that not even to save his life would he give up the girdle. The Tsin magnate thought better of it; but it is remarkable ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker

... Anglo-Norman title of butler. This, his regular name of office, was the key to the buttery-hatch, and the old man instantly appeared, with his gray cassock and high rolled hose, a ponderous bunch of keys suspended by a silver chain to his broad leathern girdle, which, in consideration of the emergency of the time, he had thought it right to balance on the left side with a huge falchion, which seemed much too weighty for his old arm ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... thou see in thy dream, O King of the age?" asked Dendan. "I dreamt," answered the King, "that I was in a pit, as it were a black well, where meseemed folk were tormenting me; and I would have risen, but fell on my feet and could not get out of the pit. Then I turned and saw on the ground a girdle of gold and put out my hand to take it; but when I raised it from the ground, I saw it was two girdles. So I girt my middle with them, and behold, they became one girdle; and this, O Vizier, is my dream and what I saw in sleep." "O our lord the Sultan," said Dendan, "this thy dream ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous

... separate, and a most remarkable mass of rock raises itself from the midst of them. It has the form of a diadem with a number of points, and it is to this circumstance that it owes its name. Around the mountain range winds a forest girdle, from four to six hundred paces broad; it is inhabited, and contains the most delicious fruit. Nowhere did I ever eat such bread-fruit, mangoes, oranges, and guavas, as I did here. As for cocoa-nuts, the natives ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... lighted with shaded candles, and in the soft glow Anne's face had become startlingly lovely. She had tucked a handful of the shell-pink wild flowers into the girdle of her black dress, and their hue was reflected in her cheeks, glowing from the afternoon's drive in the sun. As King talked and laughed, his eyes seldom off her face, he felt the enchantment of her presence grow upon him with every minute ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond

... economy should be only comfortably clothed and left free to the most natural and easy action, well ventilated or exposed to the ingress and egress of the atmosphere, without any local pressures or means for unnatural warmth. Only think of wearing a thick, heavy girdle of many pounds' weight around the whole zone of the abdominal region—a sort of engirdling poultice, heating and pressing like a girdle of hot lava, day after day and year after year! Is it a wonder that you have so many weaknesses and pains and saddening ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver

... Hizam girdle, sash, waist-belt, which Galland turns into nappes. The object of the cloths edged with gems and gums was to form a barrier excluding hostile Jinns: the European magician usually ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

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

... king attended St. Michael's Church, adjacent to his stately palace at Linlithgow, when a venerable stranger entered the aisle where the king knelt. The hair from his uncovered head flowed down over his shoulders, and his blue robe was confined by a linen girdle. With an air of majesty he walked up to the kneeling king, and said, "Sire, I am sent to warn thee not to proceed in thy present undertaking, for if thou dost it shall not fare well either with thyself or those who go with thee." He vanished ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook

... field uniform of the cavalry,—the dark-blue blouse, crossed by the black carbine sling, whose big brass buckle Ned could even now see gleaming between the broad shoulders, and gathered at the waist by the old-fashioned "thimble belt" the troop saddlers used to make for field service before the woven girdle was devised. Even more: Harvey in his misery remembered the thrill of joy with which he had noted, as the splendid rider reined in and threw himself from the saddle, the crossed sabres, the troop letter "C," and the regimental number gleaming ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King

... 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 race ...
— The Story of the Pony Express • Glenn D. Bradley

... exactly in the tattoo manner; they confine themselves to single stripes. The Sensis women draw two stripes from the shoulder, over each breast, down to the pit of the stomach; the Pirras women paint a band in the form of a girdle round the waist, and they have three of a darker color round each thigh. These stripes, when once laid on, can never be removed by washing. They are made with the unripe fruit of one of the Rubiacaceae. ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... beneath the sun, so soft, so blue, so dreamlike, an ocean worthy of its name, the enchanted region of perpetual calm, and an endless summer. Far off, for many an azure league, rims of rock, fringed with the graceful coco palm, girdle still lagoons, and are themselves encircled by coral reefs on which the ocean breaks all the year in broad drifts of foam. Myriads of flying fish and a few dolphins and Portuguese men-of-war flash or float through the scarcely undulating water. ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... sorcery and witchcraft. But being again convicted of the same practice, she made her escape with Basilia, and was never found. But Pernil was burnt at Kilkenny, and before her death declared that William above-said deserved punishment as well as she—that for a year and a day he wore the devil's girdle about his ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams

... above his head, Gregory swung again for the islander's chin. With a snarl of rage, the big man lowered his head. Then his angry growl changed quickly to a grunt of pain as he took the blow full in the forehead. Reeling dizzily, his hand sought his girdle. His fingers closed on the hilt of his knife and ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton

... hand with a spindle, and dying of the wound. Late as the hour was (and it was long past midnight), the whole family were still on foot, and far from proposing to go to bed; the dame was still busy broiling car-cakes on the girdle, and the elder girl, the half-naked mermaid elsewhere commemorated, was preparing a pile of Findhorn haddocks (that is, haddocks smoked with green wood), to be eaten along with these ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... in a long loose robe of purple silk, with wide sleeves, and round his waist is a broad golden girdle. His tunic or under-garment is purple and white, his trousers are bright crimson, his shoes are yellow, and have long pointed toes. On his head is a curious high cap with a band of blue spotted with ...
— The King's Cup-Bearer • Amy Catherine Walton

... to your majesty's commands, diligently searched all his pockets, we observed a girdle about his waist made of the hide of some prodigious animal, from which, on the left side, hung a sword of the length of five men; and on the right, a bag or pouch divided into two cells, each cell capable of holding three of your majesty's subjects. ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift

... tempests of the German Ocean cannot sever. And if we come nearer home, we shall find a project matured which will carry a fiery cordon around the entire coast of our country, linking fortress to fortress, and providing that last, desperate resource of unity, an outer girdle and jointed chain of force, to bind together and save a nation whose inner bonds of peace and love ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various

... portraiture of a man of this mysterious Mycenaean race rises before us. The flesh-tint, following, perhaps, an Egyptian precedent, is of a deep reddish-brown. The limbs are finely moulded, though the waist, as usual in Mycenaean fashions, is tightly drawn in by a silver-mounted girdle, giving great relief to the hips. The profile of the face is pure and almost classically Greek.... The lips are somewhat full, but the physiognomy has certainly no Semitic cast.... There was something very impressive in this vision of brilliant youth and of male beauty, ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie

... relation with the king. On hearing this great piece of news, David glanced proudly at Jonathan, and Jonathan at once led David away and took from him his shepherd's dress, and clothed him in his own garments, giving him even his girdle and his sword, which was the greatest honour he could have conferred on David, the sign that he felt David had, by his courageous act, proved himself more worthy to be the heir to a throne, than he, the king's own son, was. And, too, he felt such a thrill of affection for this new ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... incessantly watch, and without a moment of distraction, the unwinding of about two thousand seven hundred miles of silk filaments. For nine pounds of silk, she reels a length of filament sufficient to girdle the earth. The manufacturer, therefore, cannot and must not depend only on the constant attention that each reeler should give to the work confided to her care. He is obliged to have overseers who constantly watch the reelers, so that the defects in the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various

... and many wandering merchants were there selling figs (in the name of the Prophet, doubtless) for their benefit, and elbowing onwards with baskets of grapes and cucumbers. Countrymen passed bristling over with arms, each with a huge bellyful of pistols and daggers in his girdle; fierce, but not the least dangerous. Wild swarthy Arabs, who had come in with the caravans, walked solemnly about, very different in look and demeanour from the sleek inhabitants of the town. Greeks and Jews squatted and smoked, their shops tended by sallow-faced boys, with ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray

... missed them all, and was unwillingly compelled to return empty-handed. On my way back, and while yet several miles distant from the camp, I met Jack, who had several fat birds of the grouse species hanging at his girdle. ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne

... of George III. when well advanced in the forties—and this she found at Gore House, in Kensington, a stately mansion in which Wilberforce had made his home, and which, surrounded by beautiful gardens and shut in with a girdle of spreading trees, might have been in the heart of the country, instead of within sight of the tide of fashion which flowed in ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall

... attendance upon Saturn, whose motions, no matter how they varied in velocity or direction, were so closely followed by this strange attendant that the planet remained always centrally poised within the span of its ring-girdle. To appreciate the interest with which this strange phenomenon was regarded, we must remember that as yet the law of gravity had not been recognised. Huyghens discovered the ring (or rather perceived its nature) in 1659, but it was ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor

... locks are matted, no raiment has he For the wood, save a girdle of bark from the tree; And of all his gay splendour, you nought may behold, Save his bow and his quiver, and ear-rings ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... him with his hand to lead the way. Baisemeaux advanced, and Aramis followed him. It was a beautiful starry night; the steps of the three men resounded on the flags of the terraces, and the clinking of the keys hanging from the jailer's girdle made itself heard up to the stories of the towers, as if to remind the prisoners that liberty was out of their reach. It might have been said that the alteration effected in Baisemeaux had extended itself even to the prisoners. The turnkey, the same who on Aramis' first arrival had shown himself ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... o'clock I overtook Crawford's brigade, drawn up in front of a fine girdle of timber, in a grass field, and on the edge of Cedar Creek. Their ambulances had been unhitched, and ranged in a row against the woods and the soldiers were soon formed in line of battle, extending across the road, with their faces toward the mountain. In this ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... international Socialist never beats a retreat. They are pressing forward here, there, everywhere, in all the zones that girdle this globe. These workers, these class-conscious workers, these children of honest toil are wiping out the boundary lines everywhere. They are proclaiming the glad tidings of the coming emancipation. ...
— The Debs Decision • Scott Nearing

... malicious youths did was to take their jack-knives and girdle that Wild Rose Sweeting tree close to the ground. They went clear round the tree, cutting away the bark into the sap-wood; and not content with girdling it once, they went round it three ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... into the same little door, and led them into a dark passage, then up a stair, into a large room, simply furnished, and one end almost like an oratory. Here, looking anxiously from the window, was an old lady in a plain black dress and black silk hood, with a white apron and keys at her girdle. ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... 100.) in one solid piece of Irish oak. He lies on his left side, resting on his hip and elbow, the left hand supporting his head. The figure is in armour, with a red loose coat without sleeves over it, a girdle and buckle, oblong shield, helmet, and gilt spurs. The right hand rests on the edge of the shield. This monument was brought many years ago from the neighbouring church (now destroyed) of Norton Hautville. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 216, December 17, 1853 • Various

... lo! the sea that fleets about the land, And like a girdle clips her solid waist, Music and measure both doth understand, For his great crystal eye is always cast Up to the moon, and on her fixeth fast; And as she circles in her pallid sphere, So danceth he ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter

... be noticed that some parts of the same stone seem to scratch more readily than others, such as on a facet at the side, which is often softer than those nearest the widest part of the stone, where the claws, which hold it in its setting, usually come. This portion is called the "girdle," and it is on these "girdle" facets that the scratches are generally made. This variation in hardness is mostly caused by cleavage, these cleavage planes showing a marked, though often but slight, difference in the scratch, which difference is felt rather than seen. In addition ...
— The Chemistry, Properties and Tests of Precious Stones • John Mastin

... ends of the earth together and toss it over shoulder like a peddler's bundle, to "swop" quaint curiosities, inspiring relics, and solemn symbols, for British prints or American pig-iron. Puck us no Pucks, De Sauty, nor constrict our planet's rotundity with any forty-minute girdle; for in these days of inflating crinoline and ever-increasing circumference of hooped skirts, it becomes us to leave our Mother Earth at least in the fashion, nor strive to reduce her to such unmodish dimensions that one may circumnavigate her in as little time, comparatively, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... a shudder.) Thank you. B-but even Red Indians allow people to wriggle when they're being tortured, I believe. (Slips fan from girdle and fans slowly: rim ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... sad thoughts. Thou hearest all as I see all. Give me tinkling shells from thy girdle and place them on my neck and in my beak. I may guide thee with my seeing if thou hear and follow my trail. Well I know the way to thy country. Each year I lead thither the wild geese and the cranes who flee ...
— Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest • Katharine Berry Judson

... to make it resemble one as much as possible. The windows were grated, the doors barred; each room had the name as well as the appearance of a cell; and the very porter who stood at the gate, habited like a jailer, with his huge bunch of keys at his girdle, his forbidding countenance and surly demeanour seemed to be borrowed from Newgate. The clanking of chains, the grating of locks, and the rumbling of bolts must have been music in Jonathan's ears, so much pains did he take to subject himself to such sounds. The ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth

... old idea of an encircling ocean as the girdle or limit of the known world, and replacing it with a new fancy of unbounded continent (on all sides except the north-west)—a fancy which the vast extension of Roman Dominion under the ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley

... are well! They are just going in to matins. You come in good time, my sisters! But who is she whom you bring with you?" inquired the old nun, nodding toward Salome, even while she detached a great key from her girdle, and unlocked the door, ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth

... However, chilled to the bone by their night on the hills, and worn out by want of food, they proceeded to the village inn to refresh themselves. Suddenly some people rushed into the room where they were sitting, and told them that the soldiers were about to roast the old man, naked, on his own girdle. This was too much for them to stand, and they repaired immediately to the scene of this gross outrage, and at first merely requested that the captive should be released. On the refusal of the two soldiers who were in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... heaven is at hand. 3. For this is He that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight. 4. And the same John had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey. 5. Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the region round about Jordan, 6. And were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins. 7. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... refused to subject Mary's pliant form to its thraldom. Even the Laird, albeit no connoisseur in any shapes save those of his kine, was of opinion that since the thing was in the house it was a pity it should be lost. Not Venus's girdle even was supposed to confer greater charms than the ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... English, and continuing in both; thus 'desk' and 'dish', both the Anglo-Saxon 'disc' [a loan-word from Latin discus, Greek diskos] the German 'tisch'; 'beech' and 'book', both the Anglo-Saxon 'boc', our first books being beechen tablets (see Grimm, Woerterbuch, s. vv. 'Buch', 'Buche'); 'girdle' and 'kirtle'; both of them corresponding to the German 'guertel'; already in Anglo-Saxon a double spelling, 'gyrdel', 'cyrtel', had prepared for the double words; so too 'haunch' and 'hinge'; 'lady' and 'lofty' [these last three instances are not ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench

... himself, 'What is this affair?' Then he did away the leaves from himself and rising, saw great plenty of men's bones there, of those whom the lion had devoured. He looked again and saw a heap of gold lying alongside a girdle;[FN140] whereat he marvelled and gathering up the gold in his skirts, went forth of the thicket and fled in affright at hazard, turning neither to the right nor to the left, in his fear of the lion; till he came to a village and ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne

... the drawing-room and looking out into the courtyard.... Suddenly—what is this?... Through the gate with quiet step enters a novice.... His conical cap is pulled down on his brow, his hair is combed smoothly and flows from under it to right and left ... he wears a long cassock and a leather girdle.... Can ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... and need them; and he actually died because he forced his diseased stomach to receive at each meal a certain amount of aliment, neither more nor less, whatever might be his appetite at the time, or his utter want of appetite. He wore a girdle armed with iron spikes, which he was accustomed to drive in upon his body (his fleshless ribs) as often as he thought himself in need of such admonition. He was annoyed and offended if any in his hearing might chance to say that they had just seen a beautiful woman. He rebuked ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden

... a spruce skirt and a gray-stone jacket," thought the boy. "But around its waist it wears a girdle which has not its match in value, for it is embroidered with blue lakes and green groves. The great ironworks adorn it like a row of precious stones, and its buckle is a whole city with castles and cathedrals and ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof

... her morning drum goes in a girdle of sound, Like the voice of the sun in song, the great ...
— The Song of the Sword - and Other Verses • W. E. Henley

... delicacy of their curves, their relative proportions and thicknesses, their beauty of detail, are not given at all. For example, in the skeleton in the foreground, the pelvis has scarcely the shape, and none of the variety of line, of the bone itself, but is merely a coarsely-drawn girdle. Compared to the extreme delicacy with which he models flesh, and his minute appreciation of every gradation of curve in the muscles, this carelessness in the treatment of ...
— Luca Signorelli • Maud Cruttwell

... soon spread over 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 ...
— Harper's Young People, April 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... verandah, a child of perhaps fourteen. A doomed child. He looked at her languidly, and continued to look at her, thinking vague thoughts. She was beautiful. Her cotton frock, belted in by some strange arrangement of seashells woven into a girdle, pressed tightly over her young form, revealing clearly the outline of a childish figure soon ready to bloom into full maturity under these hot rays of vertical sunshine. She would develop soon, even as the native women developed into maturity very early. His tired glance rested upon her face. ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte

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

... sad 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 ...
— Legend Land, Vol. 1 • Various

... within myself. HOGARTH, with an eye always awake to the ridiculous, would catch a character on his thumb-nail. LEONARDO DA VINCI has left a great number of little books which lie usually carried in his girdle, that he might instantly sketch whatever he wished to recal to his recollection; and Amoretti discovered, that, in these light sketches, this fine genius was forming a system of physiognomy which he frequently inculcated to his ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... gauntlets Wherewith I wield it, And hurl it afar off; This is my girdle; Whenever I brace it, Strength ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... definite style, belong to a much more modern period, as also do the many varieties of female dress, which have been known at all times and in all countries under the general name of robes. The girdle was only used occasionally, and its adoption depended on circumstances; the women used it in the same way as the men, for in those days it was never attached to the dress. The great difference in modern female costume consists in the fact of the girdle being part of ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix

... my slaves have combined to make me believe that which is not, or this gold must be very different from the yellow stuff that this coin is made of, this coin which is of no use but to have a hole pierced through it and hang to my girdle, that it may tinkle when ...
— Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow

... by rubbing mercurial or arsenical preparations over the whole body, or on too great a part of it, many bad symptoms are produced; as weakness of digestion, with pale bloated countenance, and tendency to dropsy. I have twice seen St. Vitus's dance occur from the use of a mercurial girdle; and once a swelled liver. I have also seen a swelled spleen and swelled legs from the external use of arsenic in the cure of the itch. And very numerous and large phlegmons commonly succeed the too hasty cure ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... its convenience. He wore large pantaloons of red cloth, the ends of which were stuffed into his boots; the boots were of flexible leather, and an excellent and easy protection for the legs and feet. He wore a jacket of red and green, with a girdle round the waist; his head was protected by a light helmet. The whole dress thus consisting of two garments, light, showy, and looking the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various

... greater safety. The whole air was full of sparks and of flying masses of cotton, shingles, etc., some of which were carried four or five blocks, and started new fires. The men seemed generally under good control, and certainly labored hard to girdle the fire, to prevent its spreading; but, so long as the high wind prevailed, it was simply beyond human possibility. Fortunately, about 3 or 4 a.m., the wind moderated, and gradually the fire was got under control; but it had burned out the very heart of the ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... and double-barreled guns. Persian carpets and rugs of all sizes, colours, and patterns, covered the floors; and crowds of governors, chiefs, and officers of the court, in their holiday attire, stood in a posture of respect, uncovered to the girdle. Two wide alcoves receded on either side, in one of which blazed a cheerful wood fire, engrossed by indolent cats; while in the other, on a flowered satin ottoman, surrounded by withered slaves and juvenile pages, and supported by ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various

... cranreuch drest; [hoar-frost] Ae night at e'en a merry core [one, gang] O' randie, gangrel bodies [rowdy, vagrant] In Poosie Nansie's held the splore, [carousal] To drink their orra duddies. [spare rags] Wi' quaffing and laughing, They ranted an' they sang; Wi' jumping an' thumping The very girdle rang. [cake-pan] ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson

... The first wild tumult of rage having more or less spent its force, she began, with a kind of heart-broken curiosity, to ask for the facts. She spoke nervously, beating a palm with a gold tassel of her girdle. "Begin at the beginning. Tell ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King

... do 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 ...
— History of Farming in Ontario • C. C. James

... presuming upon myself that I am the best knight, but that I will begin to draw at your sword in giving example to all the barons that they shall assay everych one after other when I have assayed it. Then Arthur took the sword by the sheath and by the girdle and pulled at it eagerly, but the sword would ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory

... the wonderful nights rarely experienced save under the equator, or very close to the middle girdle of the globe. The luxuriant growths of the jungle seemed to be breathing in long, steady pulsations, so uniform was the lifting and falling ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson

... her for his wife. Jupiter gave her to Vulcan, in gratitude for the service he had rendered in forging thunderbolts. So the most beautiful of the goddesses became the wife of the most ill-favored of gods. Venus possessed an embroidered girdle called Cestus, which had the power of inspiring love. Her favorite birds were swans and doves, and the plants sacred to her were the rose ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... at reverses, they made a friend of toil. They said: "We 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 ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll

... unlike the other nuns she had seen, Sister Veronica wore neither the silver heart on her breast, suspended by a red cord, nor the long straight scapular which gave such dignity to the religious habit. Her habit was held in at the waist by a leather girdle; it looked as though it might slip any moment over the slight, boyish hips, and by her side hung a rosary of ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore

... the other hand, the right, Sir Marmaduke drew a double-edged Italian knife from his girdle, and with a rapid and vigorous gesture, drove it straight between ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy

... Tut, I cannot compliment, by Mars; but, Jupiter love me, as I love good words and good clothes, and there's an end. Thou shalt give my boy that girdle and hangers, when thou hast ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson



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



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com