Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The place of the girdle; the waist.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete That part of the body where the girdle is worn.
  • noun rare The lap.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun obsolete That part of the body where the girdle is worn.
  • noun obsolete The lap.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

girdle +‎ stead

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Examples

  • She had dight her what she could to welcome his return from the hunting, and had set a wreath of meadow-sweet on her red hair, and a garland of eglantine about her girdlestead, and left her feet naked after the pool of the stream, and had turned the bezels of her finger-rings outward, for joy of that meeting.

    The Well at the World's End: a tale William Morris 1865

  • I bethought me of the knife at my girdlestead, and drew it and ran to the Red Knight, and tore aside his mail hood with one hand and thrust the knife into his shoulder with the other; but so mighty was he that he heeded nought the hurt, but swept his sword back-handed at the

    The Water of the Wondrous Isles William Morris 1865

  • The hair of thee is simple brown, yet somewhat more golden than dark; and ah! now thou lettest it loose it waveth softly past thy fair smooth forehead and on to thy shoulders, and is not stayed by thy girdlestead, but hideth nought of thy knees, and thy legs shapely thin, and thy strong and clean-wrought ankles and feet, which are with thee as full of thine heart and thy soul and as wise and deft as be thy wrists and thine hands, and their very fellows.

    The Water of the Wondrous Isles 2007

Comments

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  • The waist.

    August 21, 2014