cincture

American  

[singk-cher] / ˈsɪŋk tʃər /

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.

4. the act of girding or encompassing.

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verb (used with object)

cinctured, cincturing

1. to gird with or as if with a cincture; encircle; encompass.

cincture British  

/ ˈsɪŋktʃə /

noun

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

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Other Word Forms

• uncinctured
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of cincture

< Latin cinctūra, equivalent to cinct ( us ) ( cinc-, variant stem of cingere to gird, cinch ¹ + -tus past participle suffix) + -ūra -ure

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

cincture cinctured cincturing

The institution has a lot of baggage, as any organization with nearly two millennia and a few crusades under its cincture is bound to have.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 22, 2025

Monsignor Charles Portelli, who was Pell’s master of ceremonies at the time of the offending, demonstrated to jurors how the cincture was tied around the waist.

From The Guardian ● Mar. 1, 2019

Over his regular clothes, Pell would wear a full-length white robe called an alb that was tied around his waist with a rope-like cincture.

From Fox News ● Feb. 26, 2019

For the ceremony, the Pope wore the bloodstained cincture that Romero had been wearing when he was killed.

From The New Yorker ● Oct. 22, 2018

Their only covering was a cincture or apron of green leaves; they were gaily painted, some one colour and some another.

From Heroines That Every Child Should Know Tales for Young People of the World's Heroines of All Ages by Various

Eighteen hundred feet up the Blue Ridge, hard by Snicker's Gap, where Turner Ashby's grey cavalry thundered through to join Jackson in the Valley, stands a fine brick building faced with ten cinctured columns.

From Time Magazine Archive

Millner, as mechanically, took one of the virginally cinctured cigars, and began to undo its wrappings.

From Tales of Men and Ghosts by Wharton, Edith

Is it a dream or ghost Of a dream that comes to me, Here in the twilight on the coast, Blue cinctured by the sea?

From The Melody of Earth An Anthology of Garden and Nature Poems From Present-Day Poets by Various

Nor warrior yet, nor cinctured matron knew Of all in Ilium aught of their approach, Cassandra sole except.

From The Iliad of Homer Translated into English Blank Verse by William Cowper by Cowper, William

The palace under all its vaulted roof Remurmur’d to the feet of sportive youths And cinctured maidens, while no few abroad, Hearing such revelry within, remark’d— 170 The Queen with many wooers, weds at last.

From The Odyssey of Homer by Cowper, William

Doctor Douglass drew closer, and asked: "Will you let me stay also, and enjoy with you the wonderful charm of this opalescent air, this beautiful cincturing sea?"

From At the Mercy of Tiberius by Evans, Augusta J. (Augusta Jane)