Girthline

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The circumference of an animal, measured under the belly and over the back; the part of the animal over which the girth fits.

    "Linear body measurements taken on 137 ewes showed that heart girth and abdominal girthline are significantly (P < 0.01) related to ewe weight, hence size."

  2. 2
    A real or imaginary line around the girth of something.

    "Buff body coated with white outside ; hard; 4.05 diam.; ornamented with vertical panels of burnished lattice lines, two burnished girthlines on the bulge, and one terminating the panels of lattice lines."

  3. 3
    A rope or cable that attaches around the girth of something.

    "The torpedo method was to arrange ten torpedoes on the port side, placed outside abreast the bulkheads and the cargo-hatches so as to give the maximum sinking effect to a breach opened up by each, the torpedoes being carrie by a fore-and-aft belt-line extending along the outside from end to end about twelve feet below water, each torpedo, in addition, having a hogging-line, or girthline, extending around underneath the keel, for holding the torpedo in its place."

Example

More examples

"Linear body measurements taken on 137 ewes showed that heart girth and abdominal girthline are significantly (P < 0.01) related to ewe weight, hence size."

Etymology

From girth + line.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.