girdle
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A belt or sash at the waist, often used to support stockings or hosiery.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
gurduhlSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɡɝdəl
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A belt or sash at the waist, often used to support stockings or hosiery.
That which girds, encircles, or encloses; a circumference.
The line of greatest circumference of a brilliant-cut diamond, at which it is grasped by the setting.
The removal or inversion of a ring of bark in order to kill or stunt a tree.
The clitellum of an earthworm.
verb
transitive
To gird, encircle, or constrain by such means.
transitive
To kill or stunt a tree by removing or inverting a ring of bark.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A belt or sash at the waist, often used to support stockings or hosiery.
Used this way, girdle is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Nearby words
- cincture , rarer, so it draws attention
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.