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






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Girdle" Quotes from Famous Books



... case of all the three orders (that are regenerate). All these rites, O Yudhishthira, in the case of both Brahmanas and Kshatriyas as also in that of Vaisyas are to be performed with the aid of mantras. The girdle of a Brahmana should be made of Munja grass. That for one belonging to the royal order should be a bowstring. The Vaisya's girdle should be made of the Valwaji grass. Even this is what has been laid down in the scriptures. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... hast not made, or taught me, Lord, to care For times and seasons—but this one glad day Is the blue sapphire clasping all the lights That flash in the girdle of the year so fair— When thou wast born a man, because alway Thou wast and art a man, through all the flights Of thought, and time, and ...
— A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul • George MacDonald

... maintains that "no man ever rose to any degree of perfection in writing but through obstinacy and an inveterate resolution against the stream of mankind." Unless he mount the chariot of execution, his ideas, however good, will never put a girdle round the earth. They will halt and limp as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various

... officer on guard, hearing his cries, ran to his assistance, and extinguished the fire. He might have survived, but a singular circumstance accompanied the accident. He had been devout during the last years of his life, and, as a penance for his sins, had worn a girdle with points on the inside; these became heated, and being pressed into his body while the flames were extinguishing, caused a number of wounds, the discharge from which, at his period of life, proved too much ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 268, August 11, 1827 • Various

... being "a naked, black people, with curly hair," like that of the negroes; but he says they have "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 green boughs full of leaves, thrust under their girdle, to cover their nakedness." Also, "that the two fore teeth of the upper jaw are wanting in all of them, men and women, old and young: neither ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders

... destiny—of infinite gods—are beyond the powers of the human mind. They cannot be solved. We might as well try to travel fast enough to get beyond the horizon. It is like a man trying to run away from his girdle. Consequently, I believe in turning our attention to things of importance—to questions that may by some possibility be solved. It is of no importance to me whether God exists or not. I exist, and it is important to me to be happy ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

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

... into the room, was a picture to take the breath away,—a rhapsody in cream and amber, glittering with gems. There were diamonds sparkling on her girdle, bosom, ears, arms; a ruby like a prince's ransom nestled at her throat; there were emeralds and sapphires stitched to the soft texture of her dress to glow and glitter as she moved; and her hair was afire with points of diamond ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy

... simple. They just lay aside the girdle of beauty or chastity which they ordinarily wear and present themselves to the public as Eve did to Adam; or like so many brown-skinned ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti

... order (of St. Antony) wore a collar of gold, with an hermit's girdle, to which hung a crutch and a little bell.[3] See in the Gentleman's Magazine for the year 1750, the plate of the orders of knighthood, where T, whether a letter or crutch, is given to the order ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 554, Saturday, June 30, 1832 • Various

... handsome silver girdle, and wore his robes as a Magister"—Hus was led after Mass before the whole Council in the cathedral. He kneeled and prayed fervently for several minutes. James Arigoni, Bishop of Lodi, preached from Rom. 6:6—"That the body of sin might be destroyed." Henry de Piro proposed ...
— John Hus - A brief story of the life of a martyr • William Dallmann

... Eydtkuhnen, under the pearl-gray northern sky, lies East Prussia. Hereabout it is flat and fertile, with lavish, eye-fatiguing levels of cornland stretching away to Insterburg and beyond to Koenigsberg's formidable girdle of forts. Here are many villages, and scattered between them innumerable hamlets of only two or three houses, and a small town or two. Most of them are empty now; the German army that leans its back on the Vistula's fortresses has cleared this ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various

... spears in his hand and his boomerang stuck in his girdle, fully conscious of his dignity. Paddy Doyle went next to him, or marched at his side for the purpose of keeping him in good humour, while he endeavoured to learn his language and teach him English. Mudge marched ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston

... through rows of torches to the sound of soft music, while the air was sweetened with costly scents, and the road scattered with flowers. After a few days he sacrificed in the temple of Serapis, and then visited the tomb of Alexander, where he took off his scarlet cloak, his rings, and his girdle covered with precious stones, and dutifully laid them on the sarcophagus of the hero. The Alexandrians were delighted with their visitor; and crowds flocked into the city to witness the daily and nightly shows, little aware of the unforgiving malice ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... 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 ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... speed the cable! let it run A loving girdle round the earth, Till all the nations 'neath the sun Shall be as brothers of ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro

... cheerful; in the sensation of boundless freedom, of brave and firm conviction of his fearless will, his little, shrunken, womanish fear was drowned, leaving no trace. With an infernal machine at his girdle, he made the cruel force of dynamite his own, also its fiery death-bearing power. And as he walked along the street, amidst the bustling, plain people, who were occupied with their affairs, who were hurriedly avoiding the dangers from the horses of carriages ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev

... buckskin wrap without girdle, embroidered at the lower end with multi-coloured porcupine-quills. Bracelets of white shells, a necklace of feldspar crystals and turquoises, and strings of yellow cotton threads around her ankles complete ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... older, being pinched and peaked by the cold, yet the loveliest I have ever seen or shall see. Her hair, which seemed of a copper red, darkened by rain, was blown about her shoulders, and her drenched blue gown, hitched at the waist with a snakeskin girdle, flapped about her as she turned to one or the other, using more play of hands than our home-bred ladies do. Her feet were bare and rosy; ruddied doubtless, by the wind and brine, but I think partly also by the ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... sunshine, and even the waves had ceased to break over the opposing rocks. A thousand strange and singular thoughts rushed into his mind, but his first purpose was ever uppermost; and at length, unfolding his girdle of skin, he tied the tough cincture round the chest, and, exerting all his powers, dragged his mysterious waif into ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli

... fire of the mariner are as useful as of old. But how much wider is the field of electricity as it creates the telegraph and the telephone! In the telegraph we have all that a pencil of light could be were it as long as an equatorial girdle and as flexible as a silken thread. In the telephone for nearly two thousand miles the pulsations of the speaker's voice are not only audible, ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various

... well-made comely girl leaned up against the chimney close to the gaffer’s chair, and seemed to be in waiting on the company: she was clad in a close-fitting gown of bright blue cloth, with a broad silver girdle, daintily wrought, round her loins, a rose wreath was on her head, and her hair hung down unbound; the gaffer grumbled a few words to her from time to time, so that I judged he ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... abstinence had lost all relish of what she took. Her garments were of coarse serge, and she never wore linen, not even in sickness. Her discipline was armed with rowels and sharp points. She wore continually a hair shirt, and a girdle of horse-hair. An iron girdle had so galled her flesh, that her confessor obliged her to lay it aside. If she inadvertently chanced to offend God in the least, she severely that instant punished the part that had offended; as the tongue, by ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... sacrifice for the first time. He then acquires the status of a Brahmachari or disciple, and in former times he would proceed to some religious centre and begin to study the sacred books. The idea of this is preserved by a symbolic ritual. Some Brahmans shave the boy's head completely, make a girdle of kusha or munj grass round his waist, provide him with a begging-bowl and tongs and the skin of an antelope to sit on and make him go and beg from four houses. Among others the boy gets on to a wooden ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... 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 ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne

... moment, altogether,—by bringing to the place where I was that blessed friar, Peter of Alcantara. Of him I spoke before, and said something of his penance. [1] Among other things, I have been assured that he wore continually, for twenty years, a girdle made of iron. [2] He is the author of certain little books, in Spanish, on prayer, which are now in common use; for, as he was much exercised therein, his writings are very profitable to those who are given to prayer. He kept the first ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila

... thought.' Theology accepts it with its eyes wide open, making no attempt to explain the inexplicable; and the human will it treats in the same way. It makes no offer to us to clear up everything, or to enable thought to put a girdle round the universe. On the contrary, it proclaims with emphasis that its first axioms are unthinkable; and its most renowned philosophic motto is, 'I believe because ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock

... to carry weight, With leathern girdle braced: For all might see the bottle necks ...
— The Diverting History of John Gilpin • William Cowper

... light, and Dr. Copeland, who observed this transit in very favourable circumstances, was actually able to follow the planet until it had passed entirely away from the sun, at which time the globe, though itself invisible, was distinctly marked by the girdle of light by which it was surrounded. This luminous circle is inexplicable save by the supposition that the globe of Venus is surrounded by an atmospheric shell in the same way as ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball

... has huch-yall'd up hill and down brae, in Scotland and England, as teugh and birnie as a vera devil wi' me. It's true, she's as poor's a sang-maker and as hard's a kirk, and tipper-taipers when she taks the gate, first like a lady's gentlewoman in a minuwae, or a hen on a het girdle; but she's a yauld, poutherie Girran for a' that, and has a stomack like Willie Stalker's meere that wad hae disgeested tumbler-wheels, for she'll whip me aff her five stimparts o' the best aits at a down-sittin and ne'er fash her thumb. When ance her ringbanes and spavies, her crucks ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... that makes love in the hearts of men," said Krishna, knotting his girdle. "It is but a little time to wait, and ye shall know ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling

... bedchamber, a council hall, or a hall of audience. She was alone. She wore a loose cream-coloured gown knotted about the waist; her arms were bare, and her hair unbound and flowing loose over her shoulders to her girdle. She was to die in this act; it promised to be harrowing; and the first few notes she uttered recurred again later on as the motif for the famous quartet in ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris

... "An agraffe (a clasp) of gold fastens the upper part of your dress; to keep off the cold you cover yourselves with the purple of Tyre, you will have no other cloak than a chlamyde embroidered with gold, your girdle must be ornamented with precious stones, and gold must sparkle even upon your shoes, and on the cane which you carry. O France! if you do not abandon such luxurious extravagance, you will lose your courage and your country." Hugh Capet, who became king of France in 987, fixed his residence at ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve

... "seven golden candlesticks," and "in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire." We are told (i. 20) that "the seven candlesticks are the seven churches." This means that the candlesticks are seven different ways of attaining to the divine. They are all more ...
— Christianity As A Mystical Fact - And The Mysteries of Antiquity • Rudolf Steiner

... to look about the room, but sinks back helplessly. The curtains of the door at the back are parted, and GONERIL appears in hunting dress,—her kirtle caught up in her girdle, a light spear over her shoulder—stands there a moment, then enters noiselessly and, approaches the bed. She is a girl just turning to woman-hood, proud in her poise, swift and cold, an almost gleaming presence, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)

... with me. And having turned, I saw seven golden lamp-stands; (13)and in the midst of the lamp-stands one like to the Son of Man, clothed with a garment falling down to the feet, and girded round at the breasts with a golden girdle. (14)But his head and his hairs were white, as white wool, as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; (15)and his feet were like to burnished brass, as if burning in a furnace[1:15]; and his voice was as the sound of many waters. (16)And he had in his hand seven ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various

... neither, went a man, naked save for a red girdle and a long red cloak that was fastened round his throat and hung down from his broad shoulders. There was nothing strange about this man, unless it were perhaps the strength that seemed to flow from him and the glance of his icy eyes. He was ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard

... 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 ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton

... appeared on the scene in the train of the beautiful Princess Yolande, one of the fairest princesses in all the realm. She rode a great white horse, and she was robed in cream velvet and white furs, while about her slender waist was a girdle of gold set with sapphires which were as blue as her eyes. By her side rode Lord Mountfalcon. He was all in black armor, for he was mourning a brother who had died ...
— The Faery Tales of Weir • Anna McClure Sholl

... that rose in four peaks high above the head. His oemah, or riding coat, of crimson cloth much stained and faded, opening at the bosom, showed the links of a coat of mail which he wore below; a yellow shawl formed his girdle; his huge shulwars, or riding trousers, of thick, fawn-coloured Kerman woollen-stuff, fell in folds over the large red leather boots in which his legs were cased: by his side hung a crooked scymetar in a black ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 357 - Vol. XIII, No. 357., Saturday, February 21, 1829 • Various

... name, and he appeared in a fair way of "putting a girdle round the earth," if not in forty minutes like his elfish namesake, at least in an appreciable limited space of time, Teddy never being content except he carried about the unfortunate brute with him everywhere he went, hugging it ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson

... of shapes—hearts, human fingers, serpents, animals, images of divinities. All these were amulets; and they were probably less valued for the charm of the workmanship than for the supernatural virtues which they were supposed to possess. The girdle-buckle in carnelian (fig. 210) symbolised the blood of Isis, and washed away the sins of the wearer. The frog (fig. 211) was emblematic of renewed birth. The little lotus-flower column in green felspar (fig. 212) typified the divine gift of eternal youth. The "Uat," or sacred eye (fig. 213), tied ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero

... the first exclamation of the Queen, as she hurriedly snatched the scroll from the table, and forming it into a roll, thrust it into her girdle; "are ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... carried there, as a place of 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 ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... contractile vacuole. The entire body is surrounded by a fine cuticle. The nucleus is elongate and extends through the greater part of the posterior half. The contractile vacuole lies on one side, near the girdle. The mouth is on the anterior pole in the tentacle region. The motile organs are cirri and cilia, all inserted in the constriction. There are two sets of cirri and one of cilia; the latter stand out radially from the girdle and ...
— Marine Protozoa from Woods Hole - Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission 21:415-468, 1901 • Gary N. Galkins

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

... elephants' teeth, gold, &c. The principal male inhabitants are clothed with blue cloth shirts, that reach from their shoulders down to their knees, and are very wide, and girt about their loins with a red and brown cotton sash or girdle. They also hang about their bodies, pieces of different coloured cloth and silk handkerchiefs. The king is dressed in a white robe of a similar fashion, but covered with white and yellow gold and silver plates, that glitter in the sun. He has also many other shining ornaments of shells ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

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

... stoutly in its station, yet the girths brought him into extremity. She entered again, and dissembling the reason, asked him whether he would not take a small beaker of the sweet white wine before he set out, and offered to girdle the horse while his Reverence bitted and bridled him. Before any answer could be returned, she had begun. And having now satisfactorily executed her undertaking, she felt irrepressible delight and glee at being able to do what Ser Francesco had failed in. He was scarcely more successful ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... heads they generally twisted a strip of cotton, save when blazing sun or pouring rain called for the protection of their wide straw hats covered with oiled cotton. Generally they wore the queue tucked into the girdle to keep it out of the way, but occasionally it was put to use, as, for example, if a man's hat was not at hand to ward off the glare of the sun, he would deftly arrange a thatch of leaves over his eyes, binding it firm with his long braid of black hair. ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall

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

... corporeally and spiritually a true Son of man. Thus the face that looks down from amidst the blaze, though it be 'as the sun shineth in his strength,' is the old face; and the breast which is girded with the golden girdle is the same breast on which the seer had leaned his happy head; and the hand that holds the sceptre is the hand that was pierced with the nails; and the Christ that is ascended up on high is the Christ that loved and pitied adulteresses and publicans, and took the little child in His gracious ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... an obstacle: to land the foremost was the wish, to conquer or die was the resolution, of every division and of every soldier. Jealous of the preeminence of danger, the knights in their heavy armor leaped into the sea, when it rose as high as their girdle; the sergeants and archers were animated by their valor; and the squires, letting down the draw-bridges of the palanders, led the horses to the shore. Before their squadrons could mount, and form, and couch their Lances, the seventy thousand ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... shelves sparkled a bridal crown, and a shining girdle and breastplate and a kirtle, and ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie

... and leggins, with no covering for the upper part of his person—a garb offering fewest obstructions to his movements through the forest. In his hand he held a bow; a quiver full of arrows was slung across his back; the tomahawk was returned to the girdle around his loins, and a knife hung by a deer-sinew from ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams

... which wound its sinuous way through all this part of the country; past woods that shut in both sides of the road with a solemn gloom even at midday—woods athwart which one caught here and there a distant glimpse of some noble old mansion lying remote within the green girdle of ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... knocking was going on. Some said one, and some another (for there were many modes of egress from the tiny dwelling); but at last F—— cried decidedly, "We must try them all in succession," and shouldering his gun, with the revolver sticking in the girdle of his dressing-gown, sallied valiantly forth. I don't know what became of Mr. A——: I believe he took up a position with the rifle pointing downwards; the maids retreated beneath their blankets, and I (too frightened to stay behind) followed closely, armed with an ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker

... ranges which I have spoken of, is a great mountain, which some geographers have identified with the classical Imaus; it is called by the Saracens Caf, by the Turks Altai. Sometimes too it has the name of the Girdle of the Earth, from the huge appearance of the chain to which it belongs, sometimes of the Golden Mountain, from the gold, as well as other metals, with which its sides abound. It is said to be at an equal distance of 2,000 miles from the Caspian, the Frozen Sea, the North Pacific ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... to 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 ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown

... The Girdle of Venus is a curved line extending from Mount Jupiter to Mercury, encircling Saturn and Apollo. It appears on few hands, but it indicates superior intellect, a sensitive and capricious nature; if it extends to base of Jupiter it denotes divorce; ending in Mercury, ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens

... 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 he amused himself daily with unlocking these doors. In one of the empty rooms ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz

... hard effort, as a decrepit person might have done. You saw that she was dressed in a long gown of black, pleated to the knees, having no clasp or girdle, and bare of any ornamentation except a gold star on ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al

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

... 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

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

... the winning of the sacred emblem of purity;—then the subduing of greed; the cleansing of long-neglected uncleanness; the silencing of foul tongues; the remarkable contest with the creature which had become a foe, because, after being devoted for sacrifice, it was spared; the obtaining the girdle of strength; the recovery of the spoil from the three-fold enemy; the gaining of the fruit of life; immediately followed by the victory over the hell-hound of death; and lastly, the attainment of immortality—all ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge

... stout man with thick, carefully-combed hair, with an embroidered girdle round his lilac silk cassock, appeared to be a man of much tact and adaptability. He made haste to be the first to offer his hand to Arkady and Bazarov, as though understanding beforehand that they did not want his blessing, and ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... Naples."[269] The brutality and falseness of this reply had no other effect than to embitter Queen Charlotte's hatred against the arbiter of the world's destinies, before whom she and her consort refused to bow, even when, three years later, they were forced to seek shelter behind the girdle of ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... "Very good;" and signed to 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

... obey" answered he; and she agreed with him upon a signal, after which she returned to the Lady Dunya. As soon as she was gone, the Wazir and Aziz rose and robed Taj al-Muluk in a splendid suit of royal raiment worth five thousand diners, and girt his middle with a girdle of gold set with gems and precious metals. Then they repaired to the garden and found seated at the gate the Keeper who, as soon as he saw the Prince, sprang to his feet and received him with all respect and reverence, and opening the gate, said, "Enter and take thy pleasure in looking at the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... being a Jerusalemite, he had not been accustomed to travelling of that description. This youth was nicknamed by his fellows as Abu Tabanjah, "the father of a pistol," from his carrying a single pistol in his girdle: it being unusual for persons in his employment ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn

... qualities. A concise statement is one that is cut down until a great deal is said in a few words. A terse statement is rubbed off, rid of unessentials. A succinct statement has its important thoughts bound into small compass, as by a girdle. A compendious statement weighs together the various thoughts and aspects of a subject; it shows by means of a few effective words just what these amount to, gives a summary of them. A compact statement ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... declare his intention than the Pope himself. And it would conduce to the peace of consciences to have it declared. What if some Pope should decree that priests should go girt; would it be probable that he declared this with the intention that if one because of renal suffering should lay aside the girdle, he should be liable to hell? I think not. St. Gregory laid down, That if any one had had intercourse with his wife by night, he should abstain the next day from entering church: in this case, supposing that a man, concealing the fact of intercourse having taken place, should have ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus

... the 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

... offered better opportunities for the pencil, such a pencil as Hayter's. I used to admire as much as anything her Attitude and Air as she stood at the side of the Stage when Jason's Bridal Procession came on: motionless, with one finger in her golden girdle: a habit which (I heard) she inherited from Grassini. The finest thing to me in Pasta's Semiramide was her simple Action of touching Arsace's Shoulder when she chose him for husband. She was always dignified in the midst of her Passion: never ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald

... to himself, as Frank left the room, "to begin life again with an old penknife and a pound of honeydew. I wonder which of them got my girdle. I'll stick here till I find out that one thing, and stop the notes by to-day's post if I can but recollect them all;—if I could but stop the ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... your leave, Sor Beppo," Angioletto stepped delicately into the room. He threw down cloak and cap, unstrapped girdle and hanger, stripped off his doublet, and stood up in shirt and breeches. Beppo watched him, all agape, too breathless to chew. Before he ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... so to the last Leonardo recalls the studio of Verrocchio, in the love of beautiful toys, such as the vessel of water for a mirror, and lovely needle-work about the implicated hands in the Modesty and Vanity, and of reliefs, like those cameos which in the Virgin of the Balances hang all round the girdle of Saint Michael, and of bright variegated stones, such as the agates in the Saint Anne, and in a hieratic preciseness and grace, as of a sanctuary swept and [103] garnished. Amid all the cunning and intricacy of his Lombard manner ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater

... enemy at all; Carpaccio knew better.) Most of the painters make this stroke of the saint decisive; according to them, S. George thrust at the dragon and all was over. But the true story, as Caxton and Carpaccio knew, is, that having wounded the dragon, S. George took the maiden's girdle and tied it round the creature's neck, and it became "a meek beast and debonair," and she led it into the city. (Carpaccio makes the saint himself its leader.) The people were terrified and fled, but S. George reassured them, and promised that if they would be baptised and believe ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas

... noble, by reason of its monuments and its historic color, that I marvel much no one has ever cared to sing its praises. The old pious heroic life of an age at once more restful and more brave than ours still leaves its spirit there, and then there is the girdle of the mountains all around, and that alone ...
— The Nuernberg Stove • Louisa de la Rame (AKA Ouida)

... a good strong faith is a great help, more noticeably so than in almost any other; so that for this reason also Isaiah xi. says that "faith is a girdle of the reins," [Is. 11:5] that is, a guard of chastity. For he who so lives that he looks to God for all grace, takes pleasure in spiritual purity; therefore he can so much more easily resist fleshly impurity: and in such faith the spirit tells him of a certainty how he shall avoid evil thoughts ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther

... could not hope for mercy,—and the scarcely less terrible dangers of the pitiless wilderness between her and Canada, filled her with despair, for she was half dead already with hunger and cold. She tied her girdle to the bough of a tree, and hung herself from it by the neck. The cord broke. She repeated the attempt with the same result, and then the thought came to her that God meant to save her life. The snow by this time ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman

... race of strong women who followed the occupations of men. From their children they selected only such as were girls. United in an army, they waged great wars. Their queen, Hippolyta, wore, as a sign of her leadership, a girdle which the goddess of war had given her as ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various

... gown from the closet and slipped it over her shoulders. Then she stood for her mother to fasten it in the back. Lucy was lovely in this cloud of blue, with edgings of lace on the ruffles and knots of black velvet. She fastened her black velvet girdle, and turned herself sidewise with a charming feminine motion, to get the effect of her slender waist between the curves of her small hips and bust. Again she ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... about it, the door of his room was gently pushed ajar, and so held by whoever had opened it. Turning his head round, Kearney saw a man in long loose robes, with sandalled feet and shaven crown, girdle of beads, crucifix, cowl, and scapular—in short, the garb of the monk with ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid

... of the 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

... shall I bear to draw thee, O thou ill-starr'd! from this discoloured blade, Thy self-shown slayer? Didst thou then perceive Dead Hector was at length to be thine end?— I pray you all, consider these two men. Hector, whose gift from Aias was a girdle, Tight-braced therewith to the car's rim, was dragged And scarified till he breathed forth his life. And Aias with this present from his foe Finds through such means his death-fall and his doom. Say then what cruel workman forged the gifts, But Fury this sharp sword, Hell that ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles

... people of New Zealand "bring the prepuce over the gland, and to prevent it from being drawn back by contraction of the part, they tie the string which hangs from the girdle round the end of it. The glans, indeed, seemed to be the only part of their body which they were solicitous to conceal, for they frequently threw off all their dress but the belt and string, with the most careless indifference, but showed manifest signs of confusion when, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... honourable field. The shores of every continent have been explored—the centre of every country has been penetrated save that of Australia—thousands of pounds have been expended in expeditions to the Poles—but this country, round which a girdle of civilization is forming, is neglected, and its recesses, whether desert or fertile, are unsought and unexplored. What is known of the interior is due rather to private enterprise than to public energy. Here then there is still a field for the ambitious to ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... It is an allegorical statue of Pisa. The Ghibelline city is personified as a crowned woman, suckling children at her breast, and standing on a pedestal supported by the eagle of the Empire. She wears a girdle of rope seven times knotted, to betoken the rule of Pisa over seven subject islands. At the four corners of her throne stand the four human virtues, Prudence, Temperance, Justice, and Fortitude, distinguished ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds

... forward during flight, immensely exceed the short and weak hinder extremities. The thorax, giving origin to the great muscles which sustain flight, and containing the proportionately large lungs and heart, is remarkably capacious; and the ribs are flattened and close together; while the shoulder-girdle is greatly developed in comparison with the weak pelvis. The fore-arm (fig. 1) consists of a rudimentary ulna, a long curved radius, and a carpus of six bones supporting a thumb and four elongated fingers, between which, the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... should wear while engaged in their sacred office: "And these shall be the vestments which they shall make (for the Priest): a rational and an ephod, a tunic and a straight linen garment, a mitre and a girdle. They shall make the holy vestments for thy brother Aaron and his sons, that they may do the office of priesthood unto Me."(433) Guided by Heaven, the Church also prescribes sacred garments for her ministering Priests; for it is eminently proper and becoming that the minister ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons

... leave his comfortable fireside? We tourists who are ambitious to see the world in an easy way need but sit in our cushioned chair, cosily smoking our cigar, while some enterprising lady puts a girdle round about the earth; for we may depend upon it she will reappear ere leviathan can swim a league, and present us with a bouquet of wonderful experiences, neatly pressed between the pages of an entertaining volume. The icebergs of the Arctic, the bananas of the tropics, the camels ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... raised her veil. From her girdle-bag she took a letter, which she unfolded across her knees. "As I have said, I have friends in Italy, and some of them are rich and powerful. This letter is from a friend I have always known. Has any one of you ever heard of ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath

... poppies alone circle thy hair, girdle thy breasts as white; Bloodless blossoms of death, leaves that have ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... hears much of shipwreck, outlying iron skerries, pitiless breakers, and great sea-lights; much of heathery mountains, wild clans, and hunted Covenanters. Breaths come to him in song of the distant Cheviots and the ring of foraying hoofs. He glories in his hard-fisted forefathers, of the iron girdle and the handful of oat-meal, who rode so swiftly and lived so sparely on their raids. Poverty, ill-luck, enterprise, and constant resolution are the fibres of the legend of his country's history. The heroes ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson

... serpent's head, from the mouth of which hung pendent a large signet ring of elaborate and most exquisite workmanship; the sleeves of the tunic were loose, and fringed at the hand with gold: and across the waist a girdle wrought in arabesque designs, and of the same material as the fringe, served in lieu of pockets for the receptacle of the handkerchief and the purse, the ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... affect: and how will you be able, lady, with this frugality of speech, to give the manifold but necessary instructions, for that bodice, these sleeves, those skirts, this cut, that stitch, this embroidery, that lace, this wire, those knots, that ruff, those roses, this girdle, that fanne, the t'other scarf, these gloves? Ha! ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson

... have a great partiality for crimson crape, which is generally worn as an under-robe, and peeps daintily out at the bottom of the dress, and at the wide open sleeves; it is also entwined in the hair, and with the girdle, at the back of which it is allowed to droop in full, graceful folds. The men do not affect such bright colours as the women and children, although their robes are often fantastically embroidered with various strange ...
— Sketches of Japanese Manners and Customs • J. M. W. Silver

... cap of gossamer lace and silver ribbon on that shaking head, and tied a girdle of silken cord around the floating folds of her cashmere morning robe, which would better have concealed the attenuated figure underneath, had it been permitted to float loose, as it had done. But the dainty old lady ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens

... summer in Milan) said was invariable in Nuremberg; but after the one-o'clock table d'hote they took a noble two-spanner carriage, and drove all round the city. Everywhere the ancient moat, thickly turfed and planted with trees and shrubs, stretched a girdle of garden between their course and the wall beautifully old, with knots of dead ivy clinging to its crevices, or broad meshes of the shining foliage mantling its blackened masonry. A tile-roofed open gallery ran along the top, where so many ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... from the ankle to the knee. Round the waist they wear a dozen or more coils of fine rattan stained red, to which the petticoat is attached. Below this are generally a number of coils of brass wire, a girdle of small silver coins, and sometimes a broad belt of brass ring armour. On their heads they wear a conical hat without a crown, formed of variously coloured beads, kept in shape by rings of rattan, and forming a fantastic but not ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

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

... passion. A moment I viewed him with contempt, and thought him a poor creature for a villain. Then the skirt of his coat, curling over as he grovelled and writhed, disclosed something that turned my thoughts into another channel. Crushed under his leather girdle was a little cape, or a garment of that kind, of velvet so lustrous that it shone in the dark place where I saw it, as the eyes shine in a toad. Nor it only: before he rolled over and hid it again, I espied embroidered on one corner of the ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman

... me, might not denounce me. I immediately resolved to set to work in my vaulted room, and if possible to assume an indifferent look. But alas! an additional circumstance, which I only now noticed, increased my anxiety still more. My cap and my girdle, as well as my instruments, were wanting, and I was uncertain as to whether I had left them in the room of the murdered girl, or whether I had lost them in my flight. The former seemed indeed the more likely, and thus I could easily be discovered as ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various

... city, is the field where balm groweth; and it cometh out on small trees, that be none higher than to a man's breeks' girdle, and they seem as wood that is of the wild vine. And in that field be seven wells, that our Lord Jesu Christ made with one of his feet, when he went to play with other children. That field is not so well closed, but that men may enter at their own list; but in that season ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown

... confronted the eyes. The way we had to go seemed long and dreary and dungeon-like, but presently we turned towards an opening where the sun shone through, and my guide ascended a steep flight of stone stairs, at the top of which was a massive door of oak, heavily clamped with iron. Taking a key from his girdle, he unlocked this door, and throwing it open, signed to me to pass in. I did so, and found myself in a plain stone-walled room with a vaulted roof, and one very large, lofty, uncurtained window which looked out ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli

... a torch, and giving it to me to hold, lighted the end. He then fastened one of the cloths round his loins, and another over his head, neck, and body, leaving, however, his face, arms, and legs without covering. The thin coil of rope he had brought he secured to his girdle, while he formed round the tree a circle of tough creepers, inside of which he placed his body. He now secured his torch to the end of another piece of ratan, eight or ten yards long, with his chopping-knife fastened by a short rope. Having done ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... again the Arab sprung; similarly here and there, vainly hoping to give his antagonist a death-blow. At last, overcome by impatience, he approached so boldly that Heimbert, warding off the threatening weapon, had time to seize the Arab by the girdle and drag him from the fast-galloping horse. The violence of the movement threw Heimbert also on the ground, but he lay above his opponent, and holding close before his eyes a dagger, which he had dexterously drawn from his girdle, he exclaimed, "Wilt thou ...
— The Two Captains • Friedrich de La Motte-Fouque

... and Sickles." In the Promptorium Parvulorum, p. 138, to Elsyn (elsyng^k) Sibula, Mr. Way appends this note: "This word occurs in the Gloss on Gautier de Bibelesworth, Arund. MS. 220, where a buckled girdle is described:— ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts

... hand out of the eternal rock. A river rolled its way through a mighty chasm of cliffs, several hundred feet high, of which the one side presented enormous masses, and the other corresponding recesses, as if the great stone girdle had been rent by a convulsion. The channel was overspread with prodigious fragments of rocks or large loose stones, some of them smooth and bare, others containing soil and verdure in their rents and fissures, and here and there crowned with shrubs ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... majoram Dei gloriam was the motto which was emblazoned on their standard when they went forth as Christian warriors to overcome the heresies of Christendom and the superstitions of idolaters. "The Jesuit missionary," says Stephen, "with his breviary under his arm, his beads at his girdle, and his crucifix in his hands, went forth without fear, to encounter the most dreaded dangers. Martyrdom was nothing to him; he knew that the altar which might stream with his blood, and the mound which ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord

... priest approaches the sacrifices, he purifies himself with the purification which the law prescribes; and, in the first place, he puts on that which is called Machanase, which means somewhat that is fast tied. It is a girdle, composed of fine twined linen, and is put about the privy parts, the feet being to be inserted into them in the nature of breeches, but above half of it is cut off, and it ends at the thighs, and is ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... carrying a pail of water. The pail is of plaited willow twigs chinked with clay. With the other hand she leads a little girl about three years old. Halla is dressed in a white jerkin and black skirt, both of knitted wool. She wears her silver girdle around her waist. The child has on white knitted clothes. They are bare-headed, and their foot-wear is the same as that ...
— Modern Icelandic Plays - Eyvind of the Hills; The Hraun Farm • Jhann Sigurjnsson

... From the lessening waist to the slender feet her dress opened at either side. Beneath was a chemise of transparent Bactrianian tissue. From girdle to armpits were little clasps; on her ankles, bands; and above the elbow, on her bare white arm, two circlets of emeralds from the mines ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus

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

... you'll want," she fumbled in the girdle of her gown, brought out a paper and passed it over. "These are the ones who stayed after the reception, went up to my room with me, and helped me change—or ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan

... a fair copy of my own writing in the pass given to me by John Grey, and copied his signature also, and feigned his seal with a seal of clay, for it might chance that two passes proved better than one. Then I put in a little wallet hanging to my girdle the signet of Sir Thomas Grey, and the pass given to me by John Grey, also an inkhorn with pen and paper, and in my hand, secretly, I held that phial which I had bought of the apothecary in Tours. All my gold and jewels I hid about my body; I sharpened my sword and dagger, and then ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang

... Aladdin into some beautiful gardens a long way outside the city gates. They sat down by a fountain, and the magician pulled a cake from his girdle, which he divided between them. They then journeyed onwards till they almost reached the mountains. Aladdin was so tired that he begged to go back, but the magician beguiled him with pleasant stories, and led him on in ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.

... praised, all 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

... Rogerogee lived," added Max, "(you remember him Johnny), the giant seven feet and a half high, who wore a paradise plume on his head, and a girdle of the claws and beaks of birds around his waist? Why, this may be the very island of Podee over which he reigned, and we ought not to be greatly surprised to see him look in upon us at any moment, with his paradise plume waving among the tops ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... identified. If some of the apostles, martyrs, and worthies of the past had had a dozen skulls each, sight-seers might be more credulous. There are also in this church a lock of the Virgin's hair, the leathern girdle of Christ with the seal of Constantine upon it, a nail of the cross, the sponge which was filled with vinegar for the Saviour, blood and bones of St. Stephen, ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic

... prisoner by the Arabs. When about to be taken before Omar, the Commander of the Faithful, he arranged himself in his most gorgeous apparel, wearing a crown on his head, and his embroidered silk robe being confined by a splendid jeweled girdle. When his conductors brought him to the mosque he saw Omar stretched on the ground, taking a mid-day sleep. When he awoke he asked their business, and they replied, "We bring you here the ...
— Fun And Frolic • Various

... water pipe. Successive lengths are placed by inserting the spigot ends into the chamfered hub ends and then threading the tie hoop through the hooked ends of the projecting longitudinal reinforcing bars. A strip of galvanized iron is then passed under the pipe and bent up so as to girdle the circumferential groove except for a space at the top; the groove is then poured with a wet 1-2 cement mixture, which, ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette

... volume i., p. 88, Edition by Windham.) I have read "vetuit" in this passage, though "vitat" appears to be a better variation according to the manuscripts. (16) The bride was dressed in a long white robe, bound round the waist with a girdle. She had a veil of bright yellow colour. ("Dict. Antiq.") (17) Capua, supposed to be founded by Capys, the Trojan hero. (Virgil, "Aeneid", x., 145.) (18) Phaethon's sisters, who yoked the horses of the Sun to the chariot for their brother, were turned ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan

... by necessity to move in the matter. The colonial policy of England, as represented by the colonial office and in the royal instructions to colonial governors, has seldom been wise or far-seeing, and the British colonies which now girdle the world, have been built up mainly as the result of private enterprise; for the part taken by the government has, in most cases, been merely to give official sanction to what private individuals ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay

... Sophists is most strongly exhibited. Hippias, like Protagoras and Gorgias, though civil, is vain and boastful: he knows all things; he can make anything, including his own clothes; he is a manufacturer of poems and declamations, and also of seal-rings, shoes, strigils; his girdle, which he has woven himself, is of a finer than Persian quality. He is a vainer, lighter nature than the two great Sophists (compare Protag.), but of the same character with them, and equally impatient of the short cut-and-thrust method of Socrates, whom he endeavours ...
— Lesser Hippias • Plato

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

... not have known myself, so strange was my garb and my armament. Upon my back were slung my bow, arrows, shield, and short spear; from the center of my girdle depended my knife; at my right hip was my stone hatchet; and at my left hung the coils of my long rope. By reaching my right hand over my left shoulder, I could seize the spear or arrows; my left hand could find my bow over my right shoulder, while a veritable ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... 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 clock ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox

... first speaker. "If we had only the strong Icelander here, he would soon hang him up by his bandelier upon one of the iron hooks. He has done that before now; he has the strength of a bear. He seized such a lazy fellow as this right daintily by his girdle on one of the hooks at the weighing-booth. There hung the watchman and whistled to the others; the first who hastened to the spot was immediately hung up beside him, and away ran the Icelander whilst the two blew ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen

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

... nervous system harassed, but the husband, too, partakes of her weakness. Many men, who really love the women they marry, are subject to a slight revulsion of feeling for a few days after marriage. 'When the veil falls, and the girdle is loosened,' says the German poet Schiller, 'the fair illusion vanishes.' A half regret crosses their minds for the jolly bachelorhood they have renounced. The mysterious charms which gave their loved one ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys

... pleasant day for their picnic," she observed now, kindly. Alice was on her knees, her face puckered as she busied herself with the hooks of a girdle, but she smiled gratefully. Her two brothers had borrowed their employer's coal barge to-day, and with a score of cherished associates, several hundred sandwiches, sardines, camp-chairs, and bottles of root beer, with a smaller number of chaperoning ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris

... French prints of Gil Blas; in the print of the Canon at Dinner, he distinguished the knives, forks, spoons, bottles, and every thing upon the table: the dog lying upon the mat, and the bunch of keys hanging at Jacintha's girdle; he told, with much readiness, the occupation of every figure in the print, and could supply, from his imagination, what is supposed to be hidden by the foremost parts of all the objects. A child of four years old was asked, what was meant by something that was very indistinctly represented as ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth

... in the chemist's shop at the corner, and the panel of mirror obligingly placed for the convenience of the passing crowd, at the left of the big window, showed her reflection quite plainly. She was suddenly inspired to take the soft taffeta girdle from the waist of her dark blue muslin gown, and bind it turban-wise about her head. The effect was pleasingly modish and conventional, and she quickened her steps—satisfied. There was a tingle in the air that ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley

... the whole world, ... the ocean-girt earth, With all the seas and the hills that girdle it, Would I wish to possess ...
— The Essence of Buddhism • Various

... Mrs. Baines's bunch of keys at her girdle, a solemn trust, moved a little fearfully to a corner cupboard which was hung in the angle to the right of the projecting fireplace, over a shelf on which stood a large copper tea-urn. That corner cupboard, of ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... soft meadow, while earth beneath smiled, and forth leaped the babe to light, and all the Goddesses raised a cry. Then, great Phoebus, the Goddesses washed thee in fair water, holy and purely, and wound thee in white swaddling bands, delicate, new woven, with a golden girdle round thee. Nor did his mother suckle Apollo the golden-sworded, but Themis with immortal hands first touched his lips with nectar and sweet ambrosia, while Leto rejoiced, in that she had borne her strong son, ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang

... sunset. Mounds of straw, and wheat-stacks like bee-hives, stood out in startling rose and gold, and the green-tufted stubble glistened. As the vast girdle of crimson darkened, the fulfilled land became autumnal in deep reds and browns. The black road before the buggy turned to a faint lavender, then was blotted to uncertain grayness. Cattle came in a long line up to the barred gates of the ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... no hope of finding the lady they sought until the crowd should have thinned a little, Jack laughed and entered the silver-spangled tent. The seeress was gowned in white, with silver chains and bracelets and girdle, and a long white veil completely enveloped her except the face, and this was concealed by her yashmak up to her mocking gray eyes, with their dark, level brows. There was something in her eyes that attracted ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens

... been multiplied by a hundred, and the convertible wealth of the people has been increased in a greater ratio even. The railway, the telegraphic, the telephonic systems have been created. The dream of Shakespeare has been realized—we have put a girdle round about the Earth in ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell

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

... I knew by childish memories that she could go abroad upon the winds, when she heard that sobbing of litanies, or the thundering of organs, and when she beheld the mustering of summer clouds. This sister, the elder, it is that carries keys more than papal at her girdle, which open every cottage and every palace. She, to my knowledge, sate all last summer by the bedside of the blind beggar, him that so often and so gladly I talked with: whose pious daughter, eight years old, with the sunny countenance, resisted ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... a bonnet for a woman in his wife's position to wear. He had never noticed a woman's bonnet before except as he had absent-mindedly observed them in front of him in meeting. Now he brought his mind to bear upon that bonnet. It seemed to be made up of three component parts—a foundation: a girdle apparently to bind together and tie on the head; and a decoration. Straw, silk and some kind of unreal flowers. Was that all? He stooped down and picked the thing up with the tips of his fingers, held it ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... the hills, Over the lakes and the plains, Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream, The spirit he love remains; And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, Whilst he is dissolving in rains. . . . . . . . "I bind the sun's throne with the burning zone, And the moon's with a girdle of pearl: The volcanoes are dim, and the starts reel and swim When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape, Over a torrent sea, Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof, The mountains its columns ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... awakened from the silence of creation. While they yet hesitated in uncertainty, the form of the Indian was seen gliding out of the thicket. As the chief rejoined them, with one hand he attached the reeking scalp of the unfortunate young Frenchman to his girdle, and with the other he replaced the knife and tomahawk that had drunk his blood. He then took his wonted station, with the air of a man who believed he had ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper

... the priesthood. It was conceivable, indeed, that members of the latter might dispute it and argue with him, or even denounce him for a heretic. But only at first; the thing was too simply true to be long questioned. In any event, his duty was plain; with righteousness as the girdle of his loins he must go forth on the morrow and magnify his office in the ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson

... England. At Salisbury, for instance, the candidate must reside in the home for three months, that her ability and efficiency may be tested. If accepted, she then puts on a gray serge habit, a leathern girdle, white cap, black bonnet, the veil and cloak of a probationer, and is admitted to the "degree" of a probationer at a special service. The year of probation having come to an end, she is again presented to the bishop, and is set apart as a deaconess by the laying on of hands. This ...
— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft

... sauntering he met a hermit, whose white and venerable beard hung down to his girdle. He held a book in his hand, which he read with great attention. Zadig stopped, and made him a profound obeisance. The hermit returned the compliment with such a noble and engaging air, that Zadig had the curiosity to enter into conversation with him. He asked him what ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... enveloped by a neutral-tinted shawl, and upon her head was a modist toque of light straw, garlanded with pink roses. This may have been her hunt constume, for the carcasses of two slain rabbits swung jauntily from her girdle. She undulated by us with no sign. Pete's glistening little eyes lingered in appraisal upon her noble rotundities and her dangling quarry. Then, with a graceful flourish of the new cigarette, he paid ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... stopped, as if by magic, and a stout Amazon, of forbidding aspect, who seemed to be the Commander-in-Chief, advanced to the front. On her head she wore an immense native jelibag, tricked out with feathers; her breast was encased in a huge silver tureene. Her waist was encircled with a broad girdle, in which were stuck all manner of deadly arms, stuhpans, sorspans, spihts, and deeshecloutz. In her left hand she carried a deadly-looking kaster, while in her right she brandished a massive rolinpin, a frightful ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 17, 1891 • Various

... 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 front room, high words were given ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson



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