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or switch; a severe spasm; a twinge; a pang. Conscience . . . is freed from many fearful girds and twinges which the atheist feels. Tillotson.

One who girds; a satirist.

That with which one is girded; a girdle. Instead of a stomacher, a girding of sackcloth. Is. iii. 24.

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. Shak. Their breasts girded with golden girdles. Rev. xv. 6.

One who girdles.

That part of the body where the girdle is worn. [Obs.] Sheathed, beneath his girdlestead. Chapman.

To bind with a band or girdle; to gird.

To surround as with a girdle.

To gird; to encompass. Shak.

To surround as with a girdle; to girdle.

To gird too closely. [R.]

A kind of kelp (Laminaria digitata) with palmately cleft fronds; -- called also sea wand, seaware, and tangle.

To blind below; to gird round the bottom. They used helps, undergirding the ship. Acts xxvii. 17.

To loose the girdle or band of; to unbind; to unload. He ungirded his camels. Gen. xxiv. 32.

The girdle of a Jewish priest or officer.

A broad dagger formerly worn at the girdle. [Written also anelace.]

ing else; an appurtenance. [Obs.] Six French rapiers and poniards, with their assigns, as girdles, hangers, and so. Shak.

lastic forces of tension and compression, exerted by the fibers in any cross section of a girder. -- Optic axis of a crystal, the direction in which a ray of transmitted light suffers no double refraction. All crystals, not of the isometric system, are either uniaxial or biaxial. -- Optic axis, Visual axis (Opt.), th…

To girdle. See Girdle, v. t., 3.

Having a beach or beaches; formed by a beach or beaches; shingly. The beachy girdle of the ocean. Shak.