girth

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The distance around something; the circumference.
2. n. Size; bulk: a person of large girth.
3. n. A strap encircling an animal's body in order to secure a load or saddle on its back; a cinch.
4. v. To measure the circumference of.
5. v. To encircle.
6. v. To secure with a girth.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A band or girdle; especially, a band passed under the belly of a horse or other animal, and drawn tight and fastened, to secure a saddle or a pack on its back.
2. n. The measure round a person's body or round a pillar, tree, or anything of a cylindrical or roundish shape.
3. n. A girdling; a circuit; a perimeter; an encircling inclosure.
4. n. In car-building, a long horizontal bracing-timber on the inside of the frame of a box-car.
5. n. In. printing, one of two bands of leather or stout webbing (also called straps) attached to the rounce of a hand-press, used for running the carriage in and out.
6. To bind with a girth.
7. To encircle or surround with a measuring-line, as in measuring moldings, etc.

Wiktionary

1. n. The distance measured around an object.
2. n. A band passed under the belly of an animal to hold various types of saddles in place.
3. n. informal One's waistline circumference, most often a large one.
4. v. To bind as if with a girth or band.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A band or strap which encircles the body; especially, one by which a saddle is fastened upon the back of a horse.
2. n. The measure around any object, such as a body at the waist or belly, or a box ; the circumference of anything.
3. n. A small horizontal brace or girder.
4. v. rare To bind as with a girth.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. tie a cinch around
2. n. stable gear consisting of a band around a horse's belly that holds the saddle in place
3. n. the distance around a person's body