girdle

Etymology 1

From Middle English girdel, gerdel, gurdel, from Old English gyrdel, from Proto-West Germanic *gurdil, from Proto-Germanic *gurdilaz (“girdle, belt”), equivalent to gird + -le. cognates Cognate with Saterland Frisian Gäddel (“belt”), West Frisian gurdle, gurle, gurl (“belt”), Dutch gordel (“belt”), German Gürtel (“belt”), Yiddish גאַרטל (gartl, “belt”) (whence gartel, a doublet of girdle), Swedish gördel (“girdle”), Icelandic gyrðill (“girdle”).

noun

1. That which girds, encircles, or encloses; a circumference
2. A belt or sash at the waist, often used to support stockings or hosiery.
   O Queen, most exalted of Persia's deep-girdled women, venerable mother of Xerxes, wife of Darius, all hail! Aeschylus, The Persians 155
3. A garment used to hold the abdomen, hips, buttocks, and/or thighs in a particular shape.
4. The zodiac; also, the equator.
   that gems the starry girdle of the year 1799, Thomas Campbell, Pleasures of Hope
   from the world's girdle to the frozen pole 1782, William Cowper, Expostulation
5. The line of greatest circumference of a brilliant-cut diamond, at which it is grasped by the setting.
6. (mining) A thin bed or stratum of stone.
7. The clitellum of an earthworm.
8. The removal or inversion of a ring of bark in order to kill or stunt a tree.

verb

1. (transitive) To gird, encircle, or constrain by such means.
   The Equator, as everyone knows, is an imaginary line or circle girdling the Earth half-way between the North and South poles. 1920, Edward Carpenter, Pagan and Christian Creeds: Their Origin and Meaning, page 36
2. (transitive) To kill or stunt a tree by removing or inverting a ring of bark.
   The ordinary large reddish "hen hawks," which circle high above meadows, are doing great good to the farmer by feeding upon the mice and other creatures which steal his grain and girdle his trees. 1911, Anna Botsford Comstock, Handbook of Nature Study, 24th edition, published 1939, page 108

Etymology 2

noun

1. (Scotland, Northern English) Alternative form of griddle