How to Use girdle in a Sentence

girdle

1 of 2 noun
  • Many items that are called corsets aren't true corsets but are instead bustiers or girdles.
    — Cora Harrington, Allure, 8 Feb. 2018
  • Larvae feed beneath the bark and girdle branches and trunks of trees.
    — oregonlive, 18 Feb. 2023
  • Like the girdles that came before them, pantyhose could become a thing of the past.
    — Southern Living, 24 Feb. 2017
  • Some 30 amulets and a unique gold girdle were found within the wrappings.
    — Katie Hunt, CNN, 28 Dec. 2021
  • Few actresses at the time said no to wearing girdles, says Haspiel.
    — Kc Baker, PEOPLE, 9 May 2026
  • Next to her, police found a receipt, a girdle and bloody newspapers.
    — Christine Pelisek, PEOPLE.com, 26 Sep. 2019
  • This extension of the cover could be used to carry the book like a purse or could be tucked into a girdle or belt.
    — Constance Grady, Vox, 21 Apr. 2018
  • One of the best examples of this is the ctenophore Cestum, or the Venus girdle.
    — Literary Hub, 25 Sep. 2025
  • The spots rapidly enlarge to form purplish black lesions, which girdle the stems and leaves, killing the foliage.
    — Kym Pokorny, OregonLive.com, 11 June 2017
  • The Spanx of today, however, is about more than just modern girdles.
    — Alexandra Cavallo, USA TODAY, 24 Feb. 2020
  • The mummy wore a beaded golden girdle and had 30 amulets in their linen wrappings, some made of gold.
    — Aylin Woodward, WSJ, 28 Dec. 2021
  • Left unchecked, these invasives choke out native plants, girdle trees, and cause a host of other problems.
    — Lauren Landers, Better Homes & Gardens, 8 Dec. 2025
  • Wildlife and pests feeding potentially girdle and even kill new plantings.
    — Lauren Landers, Better Homes & Gardens, 2 Nov. 2025
  • Women were stuffed into perma-girdles, hoisted onto heels, and cinched within an inch of their spleens.
    — Rachel Syme, The Cut, 13 Dec. 2017
  • Next came all the period-correct garments, complete with girdle.
    — Lisa Rosen, Los Angeles Times, 22 June 2021
  • As each name suggests, a band of blisters wraps around one side of the body, like a girdle, often around the waist, chest, stomach, back or buttocks.
    — Health.com, 1 May 2017
  • As Camelot crumbles around him, Gawain pulls off the magical girdle that has kept him safe from harm — and his head rolls clean off.
    — Nate Jones, Vulture, 10 Aug. 2021
  • The resulting box encloses the shoulder and hip girdles, but is open at the front for the head, neck and forelegs, and at the back for the tail and hind legs.
    — Hans-Dieter Sues, Smithsonian, 20 Aug. 2019
  • Different crutches, braces and girdles — even a prosthetic leg — are on display.
    — New York Times, 20 Apr. 2018
  • Saturn isn’t the only ringed planet in our solar system, but its girdle of ice and dust is by far the most spectacular.
    — Aylin Woodward, WSJ, 15 Sep. 2022
  • Like an invisible setting, grooves are laser cut into the diamond just below the girdle.
    — Carol Besler, Forbes, 7 Dec. 2021
  • In between, there was everything from girdles to socket wrenches, dresses to guns, dolls to washing machines.
    — Allen G. Breed, The Seattle Times, 16 Oct. 2018
  • In Hanle, a girdle of mountains shuts out clouds and rain, and no town, industry, or highway exists to taint the air or brighten the sky.
    — Raghu Karnad, The New Yorker, 19 Sep. 2020
  • As the Lapith tribe carried the gift of a girdle to the shrine of Artemis, centaurs tried to abduct the Lapith women.
    — Dominic Green, WSJ, 19 Aug. 2022
  • The wire mesh excludes snowshoe hares, which sometimes clip seedlings at the stem or girdle young trees, especially at the peak of hares’ 11-year cycles.
    — Ned Rozell, Anchorage Daily News, 19 June 2021
  • The painful adherence to beauty standards that created the corset and later the girdle gets its due in Collins’s history.
    — Lisa Birnbach, Washington Post, 18 Oct. 2019
  • That includes the transverse abdominis, one of the deepest abdominal muscles, which wraps around the lower torso like a girdle.
    — Hayden Carpenter, Outside Online, 16 May 2021
  • One display is of feminine undergarments from corsets to girdles to maternity Spanx.
    — Anne Gelhaus, The Mercury News, 29 Mar. 2017
  • The 1967 images also revealed a beaded girdle, the right forearm flexed at the elbow and crossing the chest, and a broken left arm resting along the mummy's flank.
    — Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 3 Jan. 2022
  • Fortunately, the loss of my first girdle cosmically coincided with the invention of Spanx, which promised to be every woman's shapewear dream come true.
    — Amy McCarthy, Marie Claire, 12 Aug. 2015

girdle

2 of 2 verb
  • If left unchecked, the stems can girdle a small tree or shrub.
    — Janet Carson, Arkansas Online, 28 Aug. 2022
  • Too tight tree stakes and straps around the trunk or branches can girdle a tree too.
    — Megan Hughes, Better Homes & Gardens, 19 June 2024
  • Wisteria can wind around a tree’s trunk and girdle it in time.
    — Tim Johnson, Chicago Tribune, 22 Mar. 2026
  • These girdling roots cause compression of the stem and sapwood.
    — Rebecca Jepsen, The Mercury News, 28 Aug. 2019
  • Otherwise, the roots could girdle the tree.
    — Lauren Landers, Better Homes & Gardens, 27 Oct. 2025
  • Their larvae girdled the trees from within, beneath the bark.
    — Ned Rozell, Alaska Dispatch News, 24 June 2017
  • Circling roots can also girdle and kill a tree years after it was planted.
    — oregonlive, 28 Aug. 2021
  • People just don’t realize that girdling a tree with a wire or nylon rope is a sure way to ruin it.
    — Neil Sperry, San Antonio Express-News, 29 June 2018
  • Voles are notorious for destroying grass crops and girdling the bark on shrubs and small trees.
    — OregonLive.com, 23 Feb. 2018
  • As long as the tree isn't being girdled, there likely wouldn't be lasting damage to the tree.
    — Homes & Gardens Of The Northwest Staff, OregonLive.com, 1 June 2017
  • The barbs of Megatrygon microps are large, and the rays have strong muscles girdling their tail.
    — Douglas Main, National Geographic, 17 June 2019
  • Also, the rootball should be inspected for circling or girdling roots.
    — Larry Figart, Florida Times-Union, 14 Jan. 2026
  • The spots rapidly enlarge to form purplish black lesions, which girdle the stems and leaves, killing the foliage.
    — oregonlive, 11 Aug. 2021
  • Therefore, do not use the girdling method for invasive or overly undesirable species.
    — Josh Honeycutt, Outdoor Life, 20 Feb. 2025
  • Removing this layer restricts the tree from moving water up from the roots or nutrients back down, a process known as girdling.
    — Andy Wilcox, Better Homes & Gardens, 3 Nov. 2025
  • After removing the plant from its nursery container, snip or prune girdling roots and rough up the surface of the root ball with your fingers.
    — Andy Wilcox, Better Homes & Gardens, 2 Oct. 2024
  • An unmapped and storm-girdled island, deep in the South Pacific, is too much to resist.
    — Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, 31 Mar. 2017
  • The string can girdle the tree trunk to permanently injure the vascular system and reduce growth rate.
    — Calvin Finch, ExpressNews.com, 14 June 2019
  • Neglecting this can risk stake ties girdling a trunk or compromising the development of a sturdy trunk.
    — Deanna Kizis, Sunset Magazine, 25 May 2023
  • Our apartment building occupies almost the entire end of a city block, for months girdled at ground level by scaffolding.
    — Daniel Foster, National Review, 23 Jan. 2025
  • 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.
    — Adrian Higgins, The Seattle Times, 17 Sep. 2018
  • These roots have grown in a circle inside the container and could eventually girdle or choke the plant if not redirected to grow out and away from the plant.
    — Tim Johnson, chicagotribune.com, 15 May 2017
  • But, unlike the train that girdles the world every 365 days, Derrickson’s tenure on the show has gone off the tracks.
    — Emma Stefansky, HWD, 1 July 2018
  • This encourages roots to migrate outwards rather than circling and eventually weakening the tree by girdling it.
    — Luke Miller, Better Homes & Gardens, 21 Sep. 2025
  • Voles are likely to blame when previously-healthy plantings topple over for no apparent reason or when a tree is girdled around its base from gnawing.
    — Arricca Elin Sansone, Southern Living, 18 July 2024
  • Voles are likely to blame when previously-healthy plantings topple over for no apparent reason or when a tree is girdled around its base from gnawing.
    — Arricca Elin Sansone, Southern Living, 19 Apr. 2026
  • Plumes of noxious smoke from raging Australian and Siberian wildfires manage to girdle the entire globe.
    — Tom Yulsman, Discover Magazine, 5 Feb. 2020
  • Girdle and Squirt The girdling method involves sawing through the outermost layers of the tree trunk, which prevents future growth.
    — Josh Honeycutt, Outdoor Life, 20 Feb. 2025
  • Moreover, the development of girdling roots beneath a mulch volcano is a virtual certainty.
    — cleveland, 23 Apr. 2020
  • Be sure to remove any nylon or plastic covering or string, since these materials never decompose and can girdle the trunk and roots as the plant grows.
    — Howard Garrett, Dallas News, 26 Oct. 2020

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'girdle.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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