girdle

If allowed to grow up the trunk of a tree, it can eventually girdle or smother and kill it.

From Seattle Times ● Jan. 3, 2024

This theory has gained a lot of supportive evidence in the 150 years since both were proposed, but it cannot explain how the associated shoulder girdle evolved.

From Science Daily ● Nov. 1, 2023

It makes sense that arms and legs originated in these folds, but “the girdle is more complex as it has links to head and its musculature,” says Martin Brazeau, a paleontologist at Imperial College London.

From Science Magazine ● Nov. 1, 2023

Powerful magnetic and electric fields flowing from and through the tokamak will girdle and heat the plasma cloud so that the atoms inside will collide and fuse together, releasing immense amounts of energy.

From Scientific American ● Jun. 15, 2023

Though I dress in white like a nun, I feel the stain of sin, of mortality, around me like a bright girdle.

From "Ophelia" by Lisa Klein

When Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy ludicrously urged Americans to dress up for travel, he was referencing this imaginary age of girdles and silk-stockinged women dolled up like Veronica Lake.

From Salon ● Sep. 18, 2026

The pair wore girdles as part of their ploy, authorities said, and had stuffed them with merchandise — including 17 pairs of jeans.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 30, 2024

RIGA, Latvia — Russian volunteers are crafting girdles from dog hair to help keep the soldiers fighting against Ukraine warm.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 19, 2022

Worn until the early 20th century, it was eventually replaced by girdles, and then more or less by diet, exercise and plastic surgery.

From New York Times ● Dec. 15, 2021

The girls grew up knowing nothing of girdles, and the boys announced their manhood by turning the bills of their caps backward.

From "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison

Shellfish was another popular commodity in a city girdled by oyster beds.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 13, 2026

Temujin girdled his sworn friend Jamukha with the golden belt taken as loot from Toqto’a of the Merkit.

From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023

Individual ash can also be girdled to make a so-called trap tree: the bark is removed all the way around the trunk, drawing borers in the vicinity with the promise of exposed sapwood.

From The Verge ● Nov. 25, 2019

Those soft, olive-like orbs join cured lemon lending tart counterpoint to roasted smelts pulled from Puget Sound and girdled with dried Berkshire ham.

From Seattle Times ● Jun. 13, 2013

A necklace, its square blue sapphires girdled by glittering diamonds coated in dust, except where a few fingerprints allowed the light to strike through.

From "The Reader" by Traci Chee

Felling is cutting down the tree outright, while girdling refers to killing the tree by removing its access to nutrients, but not cutting it down.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 18, 2023

On hilly roads girdling New York’s reservoirs, the Rivian carved up those BMWs and Benzes as if they were holiday turkeys, its clever hydraulic anti-roll system keeping the truck’s body as flat as a platter.

From New York Times ● Nov. 25, 2021

Sprinklers sent arcs of water onto the rich, green swales girdling the townhouse and condo developments.

From Washington Post ● Oct. 11, 2021

Crews have employed a number of tactics, including felling trees with chain saws, girdling their trunks with a blade and spraying the wound with a systemic herbicide.

From Seattle Times ● Sep. 17, 2018

A huge wave girdling it was advancing towards us relentlessly.

From "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel