girdle

One fossil revealed a segmented cartilaginous sternum, along with sternal ribs, intermediate ribs, and connections linking the ribcage to the shoulder girdle.

From Science Daily ● Apr. 23, 2026

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

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

He hurried out into the middle room, drawing on his blue outer trousers as he went, and knotting about the fullness at his waist his girdle of blue cotton cloth.

From "The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck

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

“They have these entire markets in girdles and beauty products.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 3, 2021

Midge has made me grateful that women are no longer expected to wear corsets and petticoats and girdles and all the gear.

From Salon ● Dec. 5, 2019

Nineteen sixty-eight marked a year in which women loosed themselves from bras and girdles.

From Washington Post ● May 23, 2018

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

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

One night Gubar has an “accident” — her excrement-containing ostomy bag, girdled to her stomach, oozes with messy seepage.

From New York Times ● Dec. 28, 2018

Undesirable tree species and invasive vegetation were carefully managed, meaning they were cut, girdled, or treated with herbicide.

From Slate ● Aug. 28, 2018

The keys were chained to the studded leather belt that girdled his waist.

From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin

They created small or large canopy gaps around the trees by either felling or girdling the competing trees.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 18, 2023

I admired the sensuous materiality of the undulating brass-and-glass facade, the riverine expanse of white oak floor, the roughness of the pale brick girdling the auditorium.

From New York Times ● Jul. 23, 2022

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