GIRTH

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does girth mean? 

• GIRTH (noun)
  The noun GIRTH has 2 senses:

1. the distance around a person's body

2. stable gear consisting of a band around a horse's belly that holds the saddle in place

  Familiarity information: GIRTH used as a noun is rare.

• GIRTH (verb)
  The verb GIRTH has 1 sense:

1. tie a cinch around

  Familiarity information: GIRTH used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• GIRTH (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The distance around a person's body

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("girth" is a kind of...):

circumference; perimeter (the size of something as given by the distance around it)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "girth"):

spread (the expansion of a person's girth (especially at middle age))

Sense 2

Meaning:

Stable gear consisting of a band around a horse's belly that holds the saddle in place

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

cinch; girth

Hypernyms ("girth" is a kind of...):

saddlery; stable gear; tack (gear for a horse)

Holonyms ("girth" is a part of...):

harness (stable gear consisting of an arrangement of leather straps fitted to a draft animal so that it can be attached to and pull a cart)

Derivation:

girth (tie a cinch around)

• GIRTH (verb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Tie a cinch around

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

cinch; girth

Context example:

cinch horses

Hypernyms (to "girth" is one way to...):

fasten; fix; secure (cause to be firmly attached)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

girth (stable gear consisting of a band around a horse's belly that holds the saddle in place)

 Context examples 

Spur on, comrades! for we must cover many a league ere we can venture to light fire or to loosen girth.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

You see, he went on, as though addressing his neglected mother across half the girth of the earth, each year I was going home.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Increasing girth of the mid section of an individual.

(Enlarging Abdomen, NCI Thesaurus)

They limited the man at his meals, but still his girth increased and he swelled prodigiously under his shirt.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

It has a girth of twenty-three feet.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Buckle that girth up, Thomas.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He had scarce got them on, and it was a sore labor, seeing that my inches will scarce match my girth—he had scarce got them on, I say, and I not yet at the end of the second psalm, when he bade me do honor to my new dress, and with that set off down the road as fast as feet would carry him.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)