girth
[gurth]
- the measure around anything; circumference.
- a band that passes underneath a horse or other animal to hold a saddle in place, especially one having a buckle at each end for fastening to straps running from under the flaps of the saddle.
- something that encircles; a band or girdle.
- to bind or fasten with a girth.
- to girdle; encircle.
Also girt.
Origin of girth
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for girth
Contemporary Examples
The couch is too deep, and he is growing heavier; he will be Buddha-like in girth at some point soon.
Frida is a colossal woman, in girth and stature, and she becomes the dark star at the center of this disconcerting debut.
Fairly or not, many people see that kind of amplitude of girth as a sign of irresponsibility or lack of discipline or something.
First came Kevin Smith, who was not allowed to board a Southwest Airlines flight because of his girth.
Mark Spiegler waddles, shifting his girth from one foot to the other, swaying slightly side to side.
Historical Examples
Let me but get my girth tightened and we may soon be out of danger's way.'
Micah ClarkeArthur Conan Doyle
It was a tree that might have had some twelve feet of girth.
Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2)William Delisle Hay
The saddle was black with long skirts, an' it had only one girth.
Dwellers in the HillsMelville Davisson Post
He had the girth of an earth in him and had to do something with it.
The Voice of the MachinesGerald Stanley Lee
Those he measured were only twenty-one feet long, and two feet in girth.
The Western WorldW.H.G. Kingston
girth
- the distance around something; circumference
- size or bulka man of great girth
- a band around a horse's belly to keep the saddle in position
- (usually foll by up) to fasten a girth on (a horse)
- (tr) to encircle or surround
Word Origin
C14: from Old Norse gjörth belt; related to Gothic gairda girdle 1; see gird 1
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for girth
n.
c.1300, "belt around a horse's body," from Old Norse gjorð "girdle, belt, hoop," from Proto-Germanic *gertu- (cf Gothic gairda "girdle"), from the same source as gird. Sense of "measurement around an object" first recorded 1640s.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper