girdlestead

English

Etymology

girdle +‎ stead

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡɜː(ɹ)dəlˌstɛd/

Noun

girdlestead (plural girdlesteads)

1. (obsolete) That part of the body where the girdle is worn, i.e. the waist.
   • [1611?], Homer, “(please specify |book=I to XXIV)”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., The Iliads of Homer Prince of Poets. […], London: […] Nathaniell Butter, →OCLC; republished as The Iliads of Homer, Prince of Poets, […], new edition, volumes (please specify the book number), London: Charles Knight and Co., […], 1843, →OCLC:

     sheathed, beneath his girdlestead

     The spelling has been modernized.

   • 1605 August (first performance), Geo[rge] Chapman, Ben Ionson, Ioh[n] Marston, Eastward Hoe. […], London: […] [George Eld] for William Aspley, published September 1605, →OCLC, (please specify the page):

     divide yourselves into two halfs, just by the girdlestead

   • c. 1604–1626, doubtfully attributed to Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, “The Faithful Friends”, in Henry [William] Weber, editor, The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, in Fourteen Volumes: […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] F[rancis] C[harles] and J[ohn] Rivington;  […], published 1812, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):

     they have made me swell
     Above the girdlestead

2. (obsolete) (Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?)The lap.
   • 1882, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Tristram of Lyonesse:

     There fell a flower into her girdlestead.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “girdlestead”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)