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cincture

[singk-cher]
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noun
  1. a belt or girdle.
  2. something that surrounds or encompasses as a girdle does; a surrounding border: The midnight sky had a cincture of stars.
  3. (on a classical column) a fillet at either end of a shaft, especially one at the lower end.Compare orle(def 3b).
  4. the act of girding or encompassing.
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verb (used with object), cinc·tured, cinc·tur·ing.
  1. to gird with or as if with a cincture; encircle; encompass.
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Origin of cincture

< Latin cinctūra, equivalent to cinct(us) (cinc-, variant stem of cingere to gird, cinch1 + -tus past participle suffix) + -ūra -ure
Related formsun·cinc·tured, adjective
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for cincture

Historical Examples

  • Each of us were drawn by him, she with the cincture of Venus, and I with the crescent of Dian.

    Ormond, Volume III (of 3)

    Charles Brockden Brown

  • These women had a cincture of cotton about their loins, but were otherwise nude.

  • He threw himself back in an arm-chair, tucking his hands into his cincture.

    The Cathedral

    Joris-Karl Huysmans

  • Yea, though every knight in the realm essayed to unfasten that cincture, it would not yield, except to one alone.

  • Then she applied the antiseptic dressing, and bound the lint tightly down with a cincture about the animal.

British Dictionary definitions for cincture

cincture

noun
  1. something that encircles or surrounds, esp a belt, girdle, or border
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Word Origin

C16: from Latin cinctūra, from cingere to gird
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for cincture

n.

1580s, from Latin cinctura "a girdle," from cinctus, past participle of cingere "to surround, encircle" (see cinch (n.)). The verb is recorded from 1757 (implied in Cinctured).

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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper