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Gird   Listen
verb
Gird  v. t.  (past & past part. girt or girded; pres. part. girding)  
1.
To encircle or bind with any flexible band.
2.
To make fast, as clothing, by binding with a cord, girdle, bandage, etc.
3.
To surround; to encircle, or encompass. "That Nyseian isle, Girt with the River Triton."
4.
To clothe; to swathe; to invest. "I girded thee about with fine linen." "The Son... appeared Girt with omnipotence."
5.
To prepare; to make ready; to equip; as, to gird one's self for a contest. "Thou hast girded me with strength."
To gird on, to put on; to fasten around or to one securely, like a girdle; as, to gird on armor or a sword. "Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off."
To gird up, to bind tightly with a girdle; to support and strengthen, as with a girdle. "He girded up his loins, and ran before Ahab." "Gird up the loins of your mind."
Girt up; prepared or equipped, as for a journey or for work, in allusion to the ancient custom of gathering the long flowing garments into the girdle and tightening it before any exertion; hence, adjectively, eagerly or constantly active; strenuous; striving. "A severer, more girt-up way of living."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Gird" Quotes from Famous Books



... Besides, they have a robe of the same fur, in the form of a cloak, which they wear in the Irish or Egyptian style, with sleeves which are attached with a string behind. This is the way they are dressed in winter, as is seen in figure D. When they go into the fields, they gird up their robe about the body; but when in the village, they leave off their sleeves and do not gird themselves. The Milan trimmings for decorating their garments are made of glue and the scrapings of the before-mentioned skins, of which they make bands ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain V3 • Samuel de Champlain

... everywhere in proportion as society attains a general polish. The most essential service, I presume, that authors could render to society, would be to promote inquiry and discussion, instead of making those dogmatical assertions which only appear calculated to gird the human mind round with imaginary circles, like the paper globe which represents the one ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft

... Mrs. Blythe clasped her hands for a moment. Then Susan said briskly, "Well, we must just gird up our loins and pitch in. Business as usual is England's motto, they tell me, Mrs. Dr. dear, and I have taken it for mine, not thinking I could easily find a better. I shall make the same kind of pudding today I always make on Saturday. ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... a compromise. Selim swore to maintain the Mussulman religion. He also swore to pardon his son Khuzru and all who had supported Khuzru. He was then brought into the presence of Akbar. The old Padishah was past all speech. He made a sign with his hand that Selim should take the imperial diadem and gird on the imperial sword. Selim obeyed. He prostrated himself upon the ground before the couch of his dying father; he touched the ground with his head. He then left the chamber. A few hours had passed away and Akbar was dead. He died in October, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... old Time's scrubbing-brush, which clears away paint and whitewash from church pillars, does the same by such characters as Raleigh's. After each fresh examination, some fresh count in the hundred-headed indictment breaks down. The truth is, that as people begin to believe more in nobleness, and to gird up their loins to the doing of noble deeds, they discover more nobleness in others. Raleigh's character was in its lowest nadir in the days of Voltaire and Hume. What shame to him? For so were more sacred ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley

... I clapped eye on the caricature thing of a coat, that Tammie Bodkin had, in my absence, shaped out for Cursecowl the butcher, I foresaw, in my own mind, that a catastrophe was brewing for us; and never did soldier gird himself to fight the French, or sailor prepare for a sea-storm, with greater alacrity, than I did to cope with the bull-dog anger, and buffet back the uproarious vengeance of ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir

... a Dutch mug, and consequently a small one (as indeed are all things Dutch, from clocks to cheeses); and also that, small as it was, he never more than half filled it, except once or twice in the course of an evening, when he would gird up his loins, as it were, with a brimmer to help him over some passage in his story of ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady

... though she never saw any at Cullerne. With gifts such as these, which must be patent to others as well as herself, there would surely be no difficulty in obtaining an excellent place as governess if she should ever determine to adopt that walk of life; and she was sometimes inclined to gird at Fate, which for the present led her to deprive the ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... bulk dislodge thy bloody mind, And send thee howling to the realms of night! As sure as Neptune cannot give thee sight.' "Thus I; while raging he repeats his cries, With hands uplifted to the starry skies? 'Hear me, O Neptune; thou whose arms are hurl'd From shore to shore, and gird the solid world; If thine I am, nor thou my birth disown, And if the unhappy Cyclop be thy son, Let not Ulysses breathe his native air, Laertes' son, of Ithaca the fair. If to review his country be his fate, Be it through toils and sufferings ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... galleons, at the bottom of Callao Bay? The world is full of old Tower armories, and dilapidated Venetian arsenals, and rusty old rapiers. But true warriors polish their good blades by the bright beams of the morning; and gird them on to their brave sirloins; and watch for rust spots as for foes; and by many stout thrusts and stoccadoes keep their metal lustrous and keen, as the spears of the Northern Lights ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville

... monger responsible for including this road among les grands itineraires. I can stand pot-holes, but the remains of a railway platform which might have been brought from one of what we know as 'the stricken areas,' laid, like linoleum, upon a foot of brickdust, tend to make you gird at Life. Incidentally, is this fast enough for you? Or are your livers ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates

... down for Chester! First blood had after all come to the visitors. The Marshall players began to look more serious. After all, then, it was not destined to be such a "soft snap" as some of them had made out to believe. They had better gird themselves, and start in to do something on their own account. These Chester fellows could play the game, it seemed, for all there was in it. Visions of possible defeat spurred the locals on to ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton

... God, laid aside His garments and took a towel, and girded Himself,' and washed the foul feet of these travel-stained men. That was a parable of the Incarnation. The consciousness of His divine origin was ever with Him, and that consciousness led Him to lay aside the garments of His majesty, and to gird Himself with the towel of service. That He had a body round which to wrap it was more humiliation than that He wrapped it round the body which He took. And we may learn there what it is that gives Him ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren

... gird up thy strength, To join that holy band at length! To Him who unceasing love displays, Whom the powers of nature unceasingly praise,— To Him thy heart and thy hours be given; For a life of prayer is ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman

... the public shame he was so undeservedly bringing upon her broke her heart. I assured her that she would be vindicated, that Armstrong would be on his knees to her at the trial's end. Your father tried to infuse her with courage, to gird her for the coming struggle to defend her own good name, but it was all of no use. She was too broken in spirit. Life held nothing more for her. On the night before the case was to have been ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander

... England's dominions beyond the seas (that is to say, from India, Africa, Canada, Australia, to English sailors, etc.), we would find how very few and weak English missions really are. What a poor role, then, do English missions play outside English lands! Why, then, do English folk gird at the great Russian Church for a lack of missionary zeal when she is labouring hard in her immense county in Europe and Asia for Christ? In Siberia and Asia generally she is ever spreading the Faith, and that among ...
— Hymns from the Morningland - Being Translations, Centos and Suggestions from the Service - Books of the Holy Eastern Church • Various

... and pompous, let me be excused for my subject's sake, fit rather to have been sung than said, and to have proclaimed to all true English hearts, not as a novel but as an epic (which some man may yet gird himself to write), the same great message which the songs of Troy, and the Persian wars, and the trophies of Marathon and Salamis, spoke to the hearts of all true Greeks ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... cross of the Legion of Honor bright, Let it lie near my heart, upon me; Give me my musket in my hand, And gird my sabre ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... ligament, 8, is the cause of it. An incipient femoral hernia of the size of 2, 12, cannot, in the undissected state of the parts, be detected by manual operation; for, being bound down by the dense fibrous structures which gird the canal, it forms no apparent ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise

... himself to any connection, which shall threaten a war within a considerable number of years. His own reign will be that of peace only, in all probability; and were any accident to tumble him down, this country would immediately gird on its sword and buckler, and trust to occurrences for supplies of money. The wound their honor has sustained festers in their hearts; and it may be said with truth, that the Archbishop, and a few priests determined to support his measures, because, ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson

... 'to-day you would save me; to-morrow a foul speech of one mine enemy shall gird you again to slay me. On the morrow you will repent, and on the morrow of that again you will repent of that. So you will balance and trim. If to-day you send a messenger to Rome, to-morrow you will send ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford

... might be who had invited me there; and not knowing a single soul in Florence, I thought perhaps I should be secretly conducted to a patient, a thing which had already often occurred. I therefore determined to proceed thither, but took care to gird on the sword which my father had once presented to me. When it was close upon midnight I set out on my journey, and soon reached the Ponte Vecchio. I found the bridge deserted, and determined to await the appearance of him who called me. It was a cold night; ...
— The Severed Hand - From "German Tales" Published by the American Publishers' Corporation • Wilhelm Hauff

... nation is to stand cowering back because it is afraid to undertake tasks lest they prove too formidable, we may well suppose that the decadence of our race has begun. No; the tasks are difficult, and all the more for that reason let us gird up our loins and go out to do them. But let us meet them, realizing their difficulty; not in a spirit of levity, but in a spirit of sincere and earnest desire to do our duty as it is given us to see our duty. Let us not do it in the spirit of sentimentality, ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... adorned it with good laws, good arms, good friends, and good ensamples.' What the enterprise to which he fain would rouse Lorenzo really is, will appear in the conclusion. Meanwhile he encourages him by the example of Ferdinand the Catholic to gird his loins up for great enterprises. He bids him be circumspect in his choice of secretaries, seeing that 'the first opinion formed of a prince and of his capacity is derived from the men whom he has gathered round him.' He points out ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... who is there of you, having a servant plowing or keeping sheep, that will say unto him, when he is come in from the field, Come straightway and sit down to meat; and will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shalt eat and drink? Doth he thank the servant because he did the things that were commanded? Even so ye also, when ye shall have done all the things that ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch

... are in possession of this history of Scripture, and have finally decided that we assert nothing as prophetic doctrine which does not directly follow from such history, or which is not clearly deducible from it, then, I say, it will be time to gird ourselves for the task of investigating the mind of the prophets and of the Holy Spirit. (49) But in this further arguing, also, we shall require a method very like that employed in interpreting nature from her history. (50) ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part II] • Benedict de Spinoza

... cejijunto, -a close-knit. celebrar celebrate, praise. celeste adj. celestial, heavenly. celestial adj. celestial, heavenly. celoso, -a jealous. cena f. supper. cenar sup. centinela m. f. sentinel. ceir gird. ceo m. frown. cerca adv. near, close. cercano, -a close by, near, approaching. cercar encircle, surround. cesar cease; sin —— incessantly, constantly. cetro m. scepter. ciego, -a blind. cielo m. sky, heaven. ciencia f. science, knowledge. ciento, cien, card. ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup

... foreign lands Keep thy life-mate for years and years away; Dangers and scornings threaten thee; and care With guile and wrath gird thee, Penelope. ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas

... Shakespeare, who, foreseeing future commentators and the "New Shakespere Society," declines to enlighten Betterton and Booth as to a disputed passage in his works, adding, "I marvel nothing so much as that Men will gird themselves at discovering obscure Beauties in an Author. Certes the greatest and most pregnant Beauties are ever the plainest and most evidently striking; and when two Meanings of a Passage can in the least ballance our Judgements which ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson

... merchant, named William Pepperell, who was pretty well known and liked among the people. As to military skill, he had no more of it than his neighbors. But, as the governor urged him very pressingly, Mr. Pepperell consented to shut up his ledger, gird on a sword, and assume the title ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... then also you will be found walking abroad in comeliness and at liberty, while others, less careful, are at home mending and washing and ironing because they went without a girdle when you girt up your garments well off the ground. Wherefore always gird well up ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte

... thought it worth while to freshen, has a weaker draught of this rancid and mawkish sentimentality. But having in those days missed (or failed over) Daniel, I thought it incumbent on me to gird myself up to its eight hundred pages. A more dismal book, even to skim, I have seldom taken up. The hero—a prig of the first water—marries one of those apparently only half-flesh-and-blood wives who, novelistically, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... High Wood. Across those two miles no one could move in daylight without being seen by the enemy, and there was practically no position to put our field guns forward of High Wood. The enemy's front line consisted of two trenches—Gird Line and Gird Support—with a forward trench on the top of the ridge, called on the left 'Butte Trench' on the right 'Hook Sap.' Our front line Snag Trench and Maxwell Trench lay this side the ridge and about two hundred yards away from the ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley

... now see Thy great power, so that men shall hail Thee their God, and the people may bend their knees unto Thee. Strengthen and guide the fighting arm of Thy believing soldiers, and help them, Thou invincible King of Battles. Gird Thyself up, Thou mighty fighting Hero; gird Thy sword on Thy loins, and smite our enemy hip and thigh. Art Thou not the Lord who directest the wars of the whole world, who breakest the bow, who splinterest the spear, and burnest the chariots with fire? Arouse Thyself, help ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes

... learn What virtue is, the plain by slow degrees With waving corn-crops shall to golden grow, From the wild briar shall hang the blushing grape, And stubborn oaks sweat honey-dew. Nathless Yet shall there lurk within of ancient wrong Some traces, bidding tempt the deep with ships, Gird towns with walls, with furrows cleave the earth. Therewith a second Tiphys shall there be, Her hero-freight a second Argo bear; New wars too shall arise, and once again Some great Achilles to some Troy be sent. Then, when the mellowing years have made thee man, No more ...
— The Bucolics and Eclogues • Virgil

... forgiven and joined hands with them both in 1840, in the hope that the power of Clay and his Eastern allies might be broken. In Congress and out he was the leader of the South as that section began to gird her loins for the fight over tariff, slavery, and ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd

... several miles from the later site of Tombstone and about four miles from the San Pedro. Later, with Dick Gird and Al Schieffelin, the original discoverer located the lower group of mines in the camp of Tombstone, then established. A number of other settlements sprang up, including the nearby Richmond, Watervale and the mill towns of Charleston and Contention ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock

... light in favour o' the bare-legged spawn o' Prelacy, wha are half Pagan, half Popish. Had he walked in the path o' the Lord he wudna be lying in the Tolbooth o' Edinburgh wi' the tow or the axe before him. Why did he no gird up his loins and march straight onwards wi' the banner o' light, instead o' dallying here and biding there like a half-hairted Didymus? And the same or waur will fa' upon us if we dinna march on intae the land and plant ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... of whom the royal Psalmist did prophesy, saying, "Gird thee with thy sword upon thy thigh, O thou most mighty, good luck have thou with thine honour, ride on prosperously, because of truth, meekness, and righteousness;" and be thou a follower of him. With this sword do justice, ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip

... Lord have a care of his soul, says he; and he has at the key of the position, and swashes through incongruity and peril towards his aim. Death is on all sides of him with pointed batteries, as he is on all sides of all of us; unfortunate surprises gird him round; mim-mouthed friends and relations hold up their hands in quite a little elegiacal synod about his path: and what cares he for all this? Being a true lover of living, a fellow with something pushing and spontaneous in his inside, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... all have their teeth gilt; or rather every man covers his teeth with a sort of golden case made to fit them, both the upper teeth and the under. The men do this, but not the women[NOTE 2] [The men also are wont to gird their arms and legs with bands or fillets pricked in black, and it is done thus; they take five needles joined together, and with these they prick the flesh till the blood comes, and then they rub in a certain black ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... and old, gird on the sword, greedier for prey than the beasts of the forest; they all cry for liberty, the wise and the boors; the fury of the battle rages like the billows ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz

... covenant of her God;" Is. liv. 6; Jer. ii. 2, iii. 4.—Of great [Pg 311] importance for the question under consideration are ver. 9: "The meat-offering and drink-offering are cut off from the house of the Lord;" and ver. 13: "Gird yourselves and lament, ye priests, howl ye ministers of the altar, come, spend all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God; for the meat-offering and drink-offering are withholden from the house ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg

... sir, remember that the ass can kick, And that when kicking, asses never bray, So gird your armor on and lop each head Who hath at your ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)

... that by means of these experiments Schoenberg will gird himself for a new period of creativity just as once indubitably by the aid of experiments which he did not publish he girded himself for the period represented by the D-minor Quartet. It may be that after the cloud of the war has completely lifted from the field of art, and a normal interchange ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld

... liberty. Heaven will bless your swords, and you will live to see the flag of the tyrant go down in the dust, and a flag of a free nation will float over a free people. I am not allowed to fight, or I would gird on a sword and smite me right and left until the friends of the tyrant were all beneath ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan

... fair and bewitching? Is she slipping back, sliding down, dipping low her once high standard of holiness to the Lord, bringing down her aim to the level of her practice, because it suits not with her easy selfishness to gird up her loins and elevate her practice to what her standard was and ought to be? And she gilds her unfaithfulness, forsooth, with the name of divine charity! saying, Peace, peace! when there is no peace. 'What peace, so long as the whoredoms of thy ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt

... the radiant colours of hope. Strife and sorrow shall disappear. Peace and love shall reign supreme. The dream of poets, the lesson of priest and prophet, the inspiration of the great musician, is confirmed in the light of modern knowledge; and as we gird ourselves up for the work of life, we may look forward to the time when in the truest sense the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdom of Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever, king of kings and lord ...
— The Destiny of Man - Viewed in the Light of His Origin • John Fiske

... answered Regin. "Put on these garments, which better befit a prince than those soot-begrimed clothes you have worn so long. Gird about you this sword, the good Balmung, and go northward. When you come to the waste lands which border upon the sea, you will find the ancient Gripir, the last of the kin of the giants. Ask of him a war-steed, and Odin will tell you ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin

... my life should fare in woeful waste; * Forsworn art Time, expiate thy sin in haste![FN318] Comes weal and comes a welcome friend to aid; * To him who brings good news, rise, gird thy waist I spurned old world tales of Eden bliss; * Till came I Kausar[FN319] on ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... gods themselves, enthroned to receive the offering of a people's life. And if to this marble representation we add the colour it lacks, the gold and silver of the vessels, the purple and saffron robes; if we set the music playing and bid the oxen low; if we gird our living picture with the blaze of an August noon and crown it with the Acropolis of Athens, we may form a conception, better perhaps than could otherwise be obtained, of what religion really meant to ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... comes to grief, and the mago handles it all over first, and, if an accurate division of weight is impossible, adds a stone to one side or the other. Here, women who wear enormous rain hats and gird their kimonos over tight blue trousers, both load the horses and lead them. I dropped upon my loaded horse from the top of a wall, the ridges, bars, tags, and knotted rigging of the saddle being smoothed over by a folded futon, or wadded cotton quilt, and I was ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... words to them: "My dear children, take unto you your darts, gird on your well-spanned bows, and go hence in different directions, and in whatsoever courts your arrows fall, there ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe

... to represent feet); next, tie round your neck a short coloured pinafore, reaching down to your hands (or rather the old dame's feet)—this will represent a gown; now, place your shoed hands upon a table, to see effect; gird the gown with a proportionate apron, the strings of which will bind your arms and body together at the chest; put on a false nose, a pair of spectacles, a lady's frilled night-cap, and a comical conical hat; add a little red cloak, and draw the table up to a window or recess, the curtains of which ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner

... of all sorts take a pride to gird at mee: the braine of this foolish compounded Clay-man, is not able to inuent any thing that tends to laughter, more then I inuent, or is inuented on me. I am not onely witty in my selfe, but the cause that wit is in other men. I doe heere walke before thee, like a Sow, that ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... declarations, what am I to reply to them? Must I profess my sympathy and accordance of opinion with them, and admit to you, that, though yesterday a private citizen, with a heart burning to be freed from fetters, I must to-day gird on the sword. May Heaven favour my lot in the absence of personal merit! To my country I owe my life and the position I hold—from having contributed to its welfare—can I then neglect the duty that I owe to it? ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... the perpetual presence of the sea, with its foaming, thunderous life or its days of dreamy peace; around the silver sands or furrowed cliffs that gird the island our white waves rush forever, ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston

... number of passages; and if I have allowed Sir Richard in one or two instances to make a lunge at their church, I trust they will notice that I have permitted him the same licence with regard to the Church of England and Exeter Hall. Finally, my impartiality is proved by my allowing him to gird at the poet Cowper. ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... interrupted Mr. Bullock in an elaborately off-hand voice, "if you've counted the change and it's all correct, we'd better get a move on. Let's gird up our loins, Mr. Smillie, and not sit ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... that you were a heroine, and would have been ready to gird on my sword and bid me go forth and fight in a noble cause," said Stephen, in a ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston

... unbuild, contrive, To save appearances, to gird the sphere With centric and eccentric scribbled o'er Cycle and epicycle, orb ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... like what we read a little way back," said Matilda, flirting over one or two leaves, "yes, here in the 12th chapter—'Blessed are those servants whom the Lord when He cometh shall find watching; verily I say unto you, that He shall gird Himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and ...
— What She Could • Susan Warner

... essays dramatic composition on mere abstract impulse, because other poets have done so, or because he is told that it pays, is only too likely to produce willy-nilly a "closet drama." Let him beware of saying to himself, "I will gird up my loins and write a play. Shall it be a Phaedra, or a Semiramis, or a Sappho, or a Cleopatra? A Julian, or an Attila, or a Savanarola, or a Cromwell?" A drama conceived in this reach-me-down fashion will scarcely have the breath of life in it. If, on the other ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer

... saying all your force is gone? I am the cause, because I dare not speak And tell him what I think and what they say. And yet I hate that he should linger here; I cannot love my lord and not his name. Far liefer had I gird his harness on him, And ride with him to battle and stand by, And watch his mightful hand striking great blows At caitiffs and at wrongers of the world. Far better were I laid in the dark earth, Not hearing any more his noble voice, Not to be folded ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester

... firstlings! And this and this for thy income-tax and thy loaves and fishes! And this for all thy disobedience! And this, finally, that thou mayest henceforth walk softly and with understanding! Now cease thy sniffling and get up! Gird on thy snowshoes and go to the fore and break trail for the ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London

... Christobal, interested, like the rest, in the floating of the mine. And forthwith Elsie fell from the clouds, and was brought back, shuddering, to cold reason again. She was sick at heart; she hated herself for her self-abasement. She must gird her with sackcloth and mourn; and the fight must be fought now, without parley or hesitation, unless the sweetness were to go forth from life for ever, and all things should turn to ashes in ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy

... hopes to be led against disease, the foster child of vice, that has gained strength under the cover of war. The disappointing days of peace will give an opportunity for the development of Christian qualities fully as great as the bracing days of battle. Teachers will need to gird up their loins for the task of giving a wise welcome to the thousands that an awakened State will send to sit at their feet, and unless they can give spiritual food as well as worldly wisdom and paying knowledge, the souls of the new-comers will be starved beyond the remedy of any ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various

... ye, at ony rate. But where's t' curate? He's happen gone to visit some poor body in a sick gird, or he's happen hunting ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... the island all day, looking down from the summit of the great cliffs which gird it round, and watching the long green waves as they came booming in and burst in a shower of ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... thee to hunt: My princely robes thou seest are layd aside, Whose glittering pompe Dianas shrowdes supplies, All fellowes now disposde alike to sporte, The woods are wide, and we haue store of game: Faire Troian, hold my golden bowe awhile, Vntill I gird my quiuer to my side: Lords goe before, we two ...
— The Tragedy of Dido Queene of Carthage • Christopher Marlowe

... the sin of it. Blessed are the stolid, and thrice cursed he who hath imagination,—for that imagination shall devour him. And in thy life a sin shall be presented unto thee with a great longing. God, who is in heaven, gird thee for that struggle, my son, for it will surely come. That it may be said of you, "Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver, I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction." Seven days shalt thou wrestle with thy soul; seven ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... dreadfull Cycones him dismay, And blacke Laestrigones, a people stout; Then greedie Scilla, under whom there bay Manie great bandogs, which her gird about; 540 Then doo the AEtnean Cyclops him affray, And deep Charybdis gulphing in and out; Lastly the squalid lakes of Tartarie, And griesly feends ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser

... past that is withered and dead: What though the heart's roses are ashes and dust? What though the heart's music be fled? Still shine the grand heavens o'erhead, Whence the voice of an angel thrills clear on the soul, "Gird about thee thine armor, press ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter

... friend to a feast; but leave your enemy alone; and especially call him who lives near you: for if any mischief happen in the place, neighbours come ungirt, but kinsmen stay to gird themselves [1309]. A bad neighbour is as great a plague as a good one is a great blessing; he who enjoys a good neighbour has a precious possession. Not even an ox would die but for a bad neighbour. Take fair measure ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod

... National Guilds than it is to learn the principal parts of a large number of irregular verbs: possibly it is much more difficult. But under certain conditions which we have seen produced, a boy will find it "easy" to gird himself up to the former task; indeed, he will get so absorbed that he will find it difficult to leave off. Few questions are less "easy" than those connected with a paper-money currency, but one half-holiday afternoon ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell

... is constructed of fragile materials, and it depends upon how it is trodden whether it bend or break. Gout, apoplexy, and other bad characters are also in the vicinity to waylay the traveller, and thrust him from the pass; but let him gird up his loins, and provide himself with a fitting staff, and he may trudge on in safety with perfect composure. To quit a metaphor, the 'Turn of Life' is a turn either into a prolonged walk or into the grave. The system and power having reached their utmost expansion, now begin ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various

... four o'clock, and did a little of the alternative occupation, that of looking out through the cracked windows on to the mutilated courtyard in front. It was getting darker now, and nearing the time when I had to put on all my tackle, and gird myself up for my round of the trenches. As soon as it was nearly dark I started out. The other officers generally left a bit later, but as I had such a long way to go, and as I wanted to examine the country ...
— Bullets & Billets • Bruce Bairnsfather

... were not shared by all my companions, some of whom endured the most frightful tortures. Dow- las and the boatswain especially, who were naturally large eaters, uttered involuntary cries of agony, and were obliged to gird themselves tightly with ropes to subdue the excru- ciating pain that was ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne

... cords, and gave one to each of his daughters. Now these cords were exceeding beautiful, of many colours, and sending forth sparks of light as it had been rays of the sun; and he said to his daughters, "Gird them about you, and keep them all the days ...
— Old Testament Legends - being stories out of some of the less-known apochryphal - books of the old testament • M. R. James

... forbidden?— Striving,—as who hath not the right to strive?— For flaunted gain through perils shrewdly hidden! Oh, labourers hard in Industry's huge hive, What wonder, if, ill-paid and tired, you hasten To follow the loud bauble and the lure, Or gird at those who your wild hopes would chasten, Or guide you on a pathway more secure! And yet beware! No oriflamme of battle Is that false radiance round yon impish brow. The jester's bladder-bauble, with its rattle Of prisoned peas, is not the tow-row-row Of Labour's true reveille. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 19, 1890 • Various

... many minds did gird their orbs with beams, Tho' [3] one did fling the fire. Heaven flow'd upon the soul in many dreams ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson

... jest, Pardoning old necessities no pardon can efface— That undying sin we shared in Rouen marketplace. Now we watch the new years shape, wondering if they hold Fiercer lightnings in their heart than we launched of old. Now we hear new voices rise, question, boast or gird, As we raged (rememberest thou?) when our crowds were stirred, Now we count new keels afloat, and new hosts on land, Massed like ours (rememberest thou?) when our strokes were planned. We were schooled for dear ...
— The Years Between • Rudyard Kipling

... gird up thy loins and arise, and speak unto them all that I command thee."—God help me! (He drops on his knees at a prie-dieu; there he finds a note, which he reads.) "Don't preach to-day; your life is in danger."—The Tempter himself wrote ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg

... and I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look you, pray, all you that kiss my lady Peace at home" (as Jack Falstaff put it), that—you gird not too suspiciously at those who ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 11, 1891 • Various

... concentrating all my energies and thoughts upon the work appointed me to do. I have been wasting my time in idle dreams of earthly enjoyment; I have been rudely awakened. O Lord of hosts, strengthen Thy servant to arise and gird up his spirit to perform fearlessly and faithfully the duties ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker

... what if it had been told the men all red with battle at Lexington and Bunker Hill,—'your sons will gird the Court House with chains to kidnap a man; Boston will vote for a Bill which puts the liberty of any man in the hands of a Commissioner, to be paid twice as much for making a Slave as for declaring a freeman; and Boston ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker

... the chill Scirocco blow, And gird us round with hills of snow, Or else go whistle to the shore, And make ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... to include as much as possible within a small space. That which is compendious (L. com-, together, and pendo, weigh) gathers the substance of a matter into a few words, weighty and effective. The succinct (L. succinctus, from sub-, under, and cingo, gird; girded from below) has an alert effectiveness as if girded for action. The summary is compacted to the utmost, often to the point of abruptness; as, we speak of a summary statement or a summary dismissal. That ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... Mightiest, in thy Father's might, Ascend my chariot, guide the rapid wheels That shake Heaven's basis, bring forth all my war, My bow and thunder; my almighty arms Gird on, and sword upon thy puissant thigh; Pursue these sons of darkness, drive them out From all Heaven's bounds into the utter deep: There let them learn, as likes them, to despise God and Messiah ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge

... firm setting of his wrinkled upper lip, that indicated the dignity of his office; a fact which was further accentuated by his carefully brushed suit of black, a clean starched collar and the tri-coloured silk sash, with gold tassels, which he is forced to gird his fat paunch with, when he either marries you or sends you to jail. The clock ticked on, its oaken case reflecting the copper light from the line of saucepans hanging beside it on the wall. Presently, ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith

... Madonna. "Ah yes, signore," laughs a maiden whose Greek face might have served Pheidias for a model, "San Costanzo is our protector, but he is old and the Madonna is young, so young and so pretty, signore, and she is my protectress." A fisherman backs up the feminine logic by a gird at the silver image which is evidently the strong point of the opposite party. The little commune is said to have borrowed a sum of money on the security of this work of art, and the fisherman is correspondingly scornful. "San Costanzo owes much, many danari, ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green

... Gird thy heavenly armour on, Wear it ever night and day, Near thee lurks the evil one, Therefore, ...
— The King's Cup-Bearer • Amy Catherine Walton

... service to the king who reigns over Britain, that he may dub me knight. Never, indeed, on any day as long as I live shall I wear visor on my face or helm on my head, I warrant you, till King Arthur gird on my sword if he deign to do it; for I will receive arms of no other." The emperor without more ado replies: "Fair son, in God's name, say not so. This land and mighty are diverse and contrary. And that man ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes

... walked on silently. Olive was thinking of the long woe-wasted youth—the knowledge of love requited came too late—and then of her who after this great blow could gird up her strength and endure for nearly fifty years. Ay, so as to find in life not merely peace, but sweetness. Olive's own path looked less gloomy to the view. From the depths of her forlorn heart uprose a feeble-winged ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... talks to Job, (chap. xxxviii,) and tells him "to gird up his loins like a man and answer ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly

... defense under the United Nations Charter and gird ourselves with sufficient military strength and productive capacity to discourage resort to war and protect ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... complete life of Alexandre Dumas. The age has not produced the intellectual athlete who can gird himself up for that labour. One of the worst books that ever was written, if it can be said to be written, is, I think, the English attempt at a biography of Dumas. Style, grammar, taste, feeling, are all bad. The author does not so much ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang

... 'Gird up thy loins like a man, for the darksome doors of Death stand open before thee, and this night thy Lord requires thy ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... me tighten every cruel sinew, And gird the whole up in unfeeling hardness, That my swollen heart, which bleeds within me tears, May choke itself to stillness. I am as A shivering bather, that, upon the shore, Looking and shrinking from the cold, black waves, Quick starting ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various

... were bravely walking up to it, when Sir Amyle hastily pushed his way to the duke and demanded that the captives should be instantly set free. Then, followed by the duchess and Belisante, he entered the palace to gird himself with the armour ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various

... Released from the servitude of her sex, which prevails in so many foreign lands, and recognized as a partaker in the divinity of our nature, why should she sink into inaction? How, as if an angel spoke to her soul, should she rise and gird herself in the meek robes of righteousness, standing fast by the young, and inciting them to a lofty patriotism, quickening brother, husband and son, to public integrity, and calming the fierce spirit ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey

... populace. How has he portrayed them? In one play alone has he given up the whole stage to them, and it is said that the "Merry Wives of Windsor" was only written at the request of Queen Elizabeth, who wished to see Sir John Falstaff in love. It is from beginning to end one prolonged "gird at citizens," and we can hardly wonder that they felt a grievance against the dramatic profession. In the other plays of Shakespeare the humbler classes appear for the main part only occasionally and ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy

... "And did you not gird at me when it was your turn?" he flashed back fiercely. "Did not you and she laugh together over that poor, fond fool Cosimo whose money she took so very freely, and yet who seems to have been the only one excluded from ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini

... the mildest mannered man That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat; With such true breeding of a gentleman, You never could divine his real thought; No courtier could, and scarcely woman can Gird more deceit within a petticoat; Pity he loved adventurous life's variety, He was so great a ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... thing we say, we younger brothers. We will gird the belt on you with the quiver, and the next death will receive the quiver whenever you shall know that there is death among us, when the fire is made and the smoke is rising. This we say ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers

... the top of his desires was still a long way off, and the higher you go the harder is the climbing. Even love does not rest at peace with the slipping on of the engagement ring. I leave it to Life, the supreme judge, to bear me out in the statement that Love must straightway gird himself for a life struggle when he has passed the flowered gateway of a ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower

... After their Beards are grown long, they wear no Cloaths, but the Hair of their Head falls behind a great deal below their Hams; and that of their Beards before comes down to their Feet: then laying their Hair thick all about their Body, they afterwards gird themselves, making use of their Hair for Cloaths. They have a Penis so long, that it reaches to the Ancle, and the thickness is proportionable. They are flat nosed and ill favoured. Their Sheep are like Lambs; ...
— A Philological Essay Concerning the Pygmies of the Ancients • Edward Tyson

... harness again!" cried D'Artagnan. "Gird on your sword, and win a coronet. You want a title; I want money; ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... true man life is a constant battle. Temptation assails him at almost every point; perils and snares beset him at every step of his mortal pilgrimage, so that every day he is called upon to gird on his armor and ...
— Now or Never - The Adventures of Bobby Bright • Oliver Optic

... of day The hosts of war are held in leash To gird them for the coming fray, E'er brazen-throated monsters flame, Mad hounds of death that tear and maim. Ho, boys in blue, And gray so true, Fate calls to-day the ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various

... Unsullied seek we; 'tis thy hard behest, Maecenas. Without thee no lofty task My mind essays. Up! break the sluggish bonds Of tarriance; with loud din Cithaeron calls, Steed-taming Epidaurus, and thy hounds, Taygete; and hark! the assenting groves With peal on peal reverberate the roar. Yet must I gird me to rehearse ere long The fiery fights of Caesar, speed his name Through ages, countless as to Caesar's self From the first birth-dawn of Tithonus old. If eager for the prized Olympian palm One breed the horse, or bullock strong to plough, Be his ...
— The Georgics • Virgil

... sir! I cannot in one moment gird myself To murder all these kisses, and she hath A vastness in this narrow world so rare, A sweep majestical about the earth— True, that she hath no ear ...
— Nero • Stephen Phillips

... was the first of a succession of variety houses that was to spread, first to Harlem, then Philadelphia, and later gird the country like a close-link chain. Vaudeville prefaced with stereopticon views, designed to appeal to the strict respectability of the most strictly respectable audiences in ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst

... given to the brave man who had saved us all, leading us so mightily in that battle a few days back; now the very queen, the lady of the land, whom all men reverenced almost as the Virgin Mother, so kind and good and beautiful she was, was to crown him with flowers and gird a sword about him; after the 'Te Deum' had been sung for the victory, and almost all the city were at that time either in the Church, or hard by it, or else were by the hill that was near the river where the crowning was to be: but I sat alone in the garden of my house as I said; sat grieving ...
— The World of Romance - being Contributions to The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, 1856 • William Morris

... has been urged that it is unnatural, not according to what is found in man and other animals in nature. It is perhaps forgotten that when we make a great effort, as in lifting, we put the breathing apparatus into just this state; we gird up our loins—or the equivalent of that process—so that this method cannot be said to be contrary to nature. The only question seems to be as to whether it is necessary and advantageous, or wasteful of energy. For ordinary efforts it does not seem to be necessary, though the chest ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills

... thighs, how great and strong they were, and his shoulders, how broad, and his arms, how mighty. And they said one to another, "There will be little of Irus left, so stalwart seems this beggar man." But as for Irus himself, he would have slunk out of sight, but they that were set to gird him compelled him ...
— The Story Of The Odyssey • The Rev. Alfred J. Church

... incontinently jump to the conclusion the THE is pronounced "Ye,"—the like of which I never heard in all England. And though this be little toward those great enterprises and happenings I shall presently shew, I set it down for the behoof of such malapert wights as must needs gird at a man of spirit and action—and yet, in sooth, ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte

... "To make thee gird on thine own knight's sword," said Ebbo, unbuckling that which he had so long worn. "Friedel," he added, "thou wouldst give me thine. Let me take up thy temper with it, thine open-hearted love ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the recently applauded and belauded Mr. Jorrocks was left alone in his glory. He then pulled up, and taking the chaplet of immortelles from his brow, thrust it under the driving cushion of the cab, and proceeded to reinstate himself in his tight military frock, re-gird himself with his sword, and resume the cocked ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees

... appall thee! Mark the East, with splendor dyed! Slight the fetters that enthrall thee; Fling the shell of sleep aside! Gird thee for the high endeavor; Shun the crowd's ignoble ease! Fails the noble spirit never, Wise to think, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... dreams! ah, me! the splendor, So mystical and tender, Wherewith like soft heat lightnings they gird their meaning round, And those waters, calling, calling, With a nameless charm enthralling, Like the ghost of music melting on a rainbow spray ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... military class will often cause a terrible devastation during the interval that he is engaged in his bhumiawat; for there are always vast numbers of loose characters floating upon the surface of Indian society, ready to 'gird up their loins' and use their sharp swords in the service of marauders of this kind, when they cannot get employment in that of ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... fighters of the gale, O hewers of the mines, O wealthy ones who need not strive, O sons of learning, art, O craftsmen of the city's hive, O traders of the man, Hark to the cannon's thunder-call Appealing to the brave! Your France is wounded, and may fall Beneath the foreign grave! Then gird your loins! Let none delay Her glory to maintain; Drive out the foe, throw off his sway, Win ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

... Glatz and Landshut, round by the southern Mountains, and up eastward again as far as Namslau, nothing but war whirlwinds in regular or irregular form, in the centre of them Traun;—and that the Old Dessauer really must have time to gird himself for dealing with Traun ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... walks in all directions, they were busy from morning to night. Primrose said they would spend a fortnight in the attics, and then the education which was by-and-by to lead to bread-winning must commence. Never did three more ignorant girls gird themselves for the fray. Primrose had a natural love for painting. She had none of the knowledge, none of the grounding, which is essential for real success in all departments of art in the present day; but she had a quick and correct eye for color, and all that Miss Martineau knew she had imparted ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade

... gloomy Temple Bar—" (Where—had you slipt, that head were bleaching now! And that same rabble, splitting for a hedge, Had joined their rows to cheer the active headsman; Perchance, in mockery, they'd gird the skull With a hop-leaf crown! Bitter the brewing, Noll!) Are crowns the end-all of ambition? Remember Charles Stuart! and that they who make can break! This same Whitehall may black its front with crape, And this broad window be the portal twice To lead upon a scaffold! Frown! ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo

... crowds, "Your incense offer, and your pious prayers, "To great Latona, and the heavenly twins, "Latona's offspring; all your temples bound "With laurel garlands. This the goddess bids; "Through me commands it." All of Thebes obey, And gird their foreheads with the order'd leaves; The incense burn, and with the sacred flames Their pious prayers ascend. Lo! 'midst a crowd Of nymphs attendant, far conspicuous seen; Comes Niobe, in gorgeous Phrygian robe, Inwrought with gold, attir'd. ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... Honourable Adam of the rising tide against him? Have they asked him to gird up his loins and hire halls and smite the upstart hip and thigh? They have warned him, yes, that the expenses may be a little greater than ordinary. But it is not for him to talk, or to bestir himself in any unseemly manner, for the prize ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... use them in the way I should like. Even these trees have eyes; ay, and tongues too; for was the old man, here, or I, to start one single rod beyond our gaol limits, sarvice would be put on the bail afore we could 'gird up our loins' for a race, and, like as not, four or five rifle bullets would be travelling arter us, carrying so many invitations to curb our impatience. There isn't a gaol in the colony as tight as this we are now in; for I've tried the ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... appeared to him in the burning bush, [68:6] and as Isaiah was emboldened to go forth, as the messenger of the Lord of hosts, when he saw Jehovah sitting upon His throne attended by the seraphim, [68:7] so Paul was stirred up by an equally impressive revelation to gird himself for the labours of a new appointment. He was about to commence a more extensive missionary career, and before entering upon so great and so perilous an undertaking, the King of kings condescended to encourage him by admitting him to a gracious audience, ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... the strength and number of each foe, Sixteen appear'd like jet, sixteen like snow. As their shape varies various is the name, Different their posts, nor is their strength the same. There might you see two Kings with equal pride 45 Gird on their arms, their Consorts by their side; Here the Foot-warriors glowing after fame, There prancing Knights and dexterous Archers came And Elephants, that on their backs sustain Vast towers of war, and fill and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith

... get there all the same, albeit in a different spirit. Timorous and trembling, our faint-hearted modern lovers gird on their new frock-coats and step shrinkingly into the arena where awaits them—radiant and triumphant—the determined being whose will has brought them thither. No, not her will, but the mysterious will of Nature which remains steadfast and of unswerving purpose, indifferent to our ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby

... his fallen idol with a vacant, tear-stained face. He tried to pray a few words at intervals, but he was not yet able to gird up his soul and wrestle with this grief. When Jenny came in she was shocked at the gray, wretched look with which her master pointed to the shameful figure on the sofa. Nevertheless, she went gently to it, raised the fallen head to the ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... she stood. But there was little need to ask that, for anyone who was fighting a Walling became ipso facto a friend of Mrs. Billy's. She told Montague that if he felt his social position was imperilled, all he had to do was to come to her. She would gird on her ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair

... and self-seeking, but we cannot countenance the evil spirit moving them thereunto. Their occupations, as you remark most wisely, might have been useful and peaceful, and had formerly been so. Why then did they gird the sword of strife about their loins against the children of Israel? By their own declaration, not only are they our enemies, but enemies the most spiteful and untractable. When I came quietly, lawfully, and in the name of the Lord, for their plate, what did they? Instead of surrendering ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... escape us; our ships guard all the coasts of the shore; our troops, as here, surround every pass. Spies, night and day, keep watch. The Welch moels (or beacon-rocks) are manned by our warders. And, were the Welch King to descend, signals would blaze from post to post, and gird him with fire and sword. From land to land, from hill to hill, from Hereford to Caerleon, from Caerleon to Milford, from Milford to Snowdon, through Snowdon to yonder fort, built, they say, by the fiends or the giants,—through defile and through forest, over rock, through morass, we ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... hand, I may perchance begin to tremble at the sight and push against thee, for the desire unto life is bold. Also I may do myself an injury and make myself unfit to be sacrificed. I adjure thee, therefore, my father, make haste, execute the will of thy Creator, delay not. Turn up thy garment, gird thy loins, and after that thou hast slaughtered me, burn me unto fine ashes. Then gather the ashes, and bring them to Sarah, my mother, and place them in a casket in her chamber. At all hours, whenever she enters her chamber, she will remember ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... looked, when he was fain to gird himself with a skin, Xanthippe his wife having taken away his clothes, and carried them abroad with her, and what he said to his fellows and friends, who were ashamed; and out of respect to him, did retire themselves when they saw ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius

... Medina. "No," answered Mahomet, "We are three. God is with us." We cast in our efforts with this grand tide of events which is sweeping on toward a better age and better race, and we cannot fail. Therefore, let us gird up our loins, be strong and of a very good courage; for, as I have said to you once before, you shall lead these little people into the land of hope and promise which the Lord swore unto their ancestors, their fathers, that ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall

... the sword of the spirit. You must take it up on Christian ground, and fight against it with Christian weapons, whilst your feet are shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. And you are now loudly called upon by the cries of the widow and the orphan, to arise and gird yourselves for this great moral conflict, with the whole armour of righteousness upon the right ...
— An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South • Angelina Emily Grimke

... before ye—from the fated road Ye cannot turn: then take ye up your load. Not yours to tread, or leave the unknown way, Ye must go o'er it, meet ye what ye may. Gird up your souls within ye to the deed, Angels, and fellow-spirits, bid ye speed! What though the brightness dim, the pleasure fade, The glory wane,—oh! not of these is made The awful life that to your trust is given. Children of God! inheritors of heaven! Mourn not the perishing of each fair toy, ...
— Poems • Frances Anne Butler

... forth; gird your loins according to the commands of Jesus Christ; be courageous; put on the armor of faith; be devoted to the service of the Gospel; always prepared to let yourselves be carried away as clouds, whithersoever the Spirit of God may direct you, by the guidance ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe

... thrusting their right arms down a monstrous lion's throat. There was a fair prospect that they would meet with plenty of such adventures before finding the Golden Fleece. As soon as they could furbish up their helmets and shields, therefore, and gird on their trusty swords, they came thronging to Iolchos and clambered on board the new galley. Shaking hands with Jason, they assured him that they did not care a pin for their lives, but would help row the vessel to the remotest edge of the world and as much ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various

... punishments is hung perpetually over his head. In return for all this his University takes a keen interest in him. She pats him on the back if he succeeds. Prizes and scholarships, and fine fat fellowships are thrown plentifully in his way if he will gird up his loins and aspire ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... address'd. Oh, ancient Monarch! Ever, evermore Speaking, debating, as if all were peace; 975 I have seen many a bright-embattled field, But never one so throng'd as this to-day. For like the leaves, or like the sands they come Swept by the winds, to gird the city round. But Hector! chiefly thee I shall exhort. 980 In Priam's spacious city are allies Collected numerous, and of nations wide Disseminated various are the tongues. Let every Chief his proper troop command, And marshal his own citizens to war. 985 She ceased; ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... and her embattled crown. The miscreants, as they raised their eyes Glaring defiance on Thy skies, Saw adverse winds and clouds display The terrors of their black array;— Saw each portentous star Whose fiery aspect turned of yore to flight The iron chariots of the Canaanite Gird its bright ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the way to Jimville you cross a lonely open land, with a hint in the sky of things going on under the horizon, a palpitant, white, hot land where the wheels gird at the sand and the midday heaven shuts it in breathlessly like a tent. So in still weather; and when the wind blows there is occupation enough for the passengers, shifting seats to hold down the windward side of the wagging coach. This is a ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin

... painful that it will be the death of me, and they hearken not to a word of mine, nor suffer thee to avail me aught." Rejoined the Caliph, "Be not alarmed, he shall not be able to gainsay my word;" and she, "An the Wali fear thee and give ear to thee, then will I gird my loins and suffer thee to teach me something of thy craft even were it that of robbing slaves' shoon." "Go forth without affright," said he laughing at her words, whereupon she took the seal-ring ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... for it was upon one of his weekly visits, "what course would you have us gird our ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow

... purer sources of truth, who have traced up its stream no higher, stand, and wisely stand, by the Bible and the Constitution, and drink at it there with reverence and humility; but they who behold where it comes trickling into this lake or that pool, gird up their loins once more, and continue their pilgrimage toward ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau

... from me;—wear it for my sake; Nay, but refuse me not; you little know Its magic power. I had it long ago From Fairyland; and its encircling charm Keeps scathless him who wears it from all harm; No evil thing can touch him. Gird it on, If but to ease my ...
— Gawayne And The Green Knight - A Fairy Tale • Charlton Miner Lewis

... way of security and peace, then go ahead. Prudence is worthless unless you put it into practice. When in doubt do nothing; but as long as you do nothing you will be in doubt. Never man or nation was saved by inaction. The only way out of danger is the way into work. Gird up your loins, trembling Judah, and push along your chosen path, steadily, bravely, strenuously, until you come to ...
— Joy & Power • Henry van Dyke

... renown'd, At solemn feast King Rudolf sate, The day that saw the hero crown'd! Bohemia and thy Palgrave, Rhine, Give this the feast, and that the wine;[19] The Arch Electoral Seven, Like choral stars around the sun, Gird him whose hand a world has won, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)

... to that sort of thing. I love the Danish language too well ever to forsake it. Only in the event of my settlement in Denmark meeting with opposition, and being rendered impossible, shall I strap on my knapsack, gird up my loins, and hie me to France or Italy; I am glad to hear that the world is not so closed to me as ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes

... and De Marylski, R.A., returning from Kashmir, got some hints from them. Abbottabad is a small cantonment on a large plain surrounded by bare mountains, a notice is posted in my room warning travellers not to go unarmed; so I'll gird on my Kookery to-morrow. A Kookery is a formidable native knife, about eighteen inches long and over two inches wide, carried in a peculiar way, sheep and goats heads come off very easily at a single blow from it. Much hotter down here, the sun ...
— Three Months of My Life • J. F. Foster

... severely criticised by Germans who visited Italy in the Imperial train. Otto Frisingensis, writing the deeds of Frederick Barbarossa, speaks with bitterness thereof: 'To the end that they may not lack means of subduing their neighbours, they think it no shame to gird as knights young men of low birth, or even handicraftsmen in despised mechanic arts, the which folk other nations banish like the plague from honourable and liberal pursuits.' Such knights, amid the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds



Words linked to "Gird" :   bind, encircle, border, build up, fortify, re-arm, environ, disarm



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