Other forms: cinches
A cinch is the strap that holds a saddle on a horse. Tighten the cinch, check the cinch, the cinch slipped.
It is the American word; British riders say girth for the same strap. Checking it twice is standard practice, because horses hold their breath while it is fastened and the strap loosens afterwards. The commoner modern sense is informal and means something very easy — it is a cinch — which came from the idea of having something firmly strapped down and therefore under control.
1nouncinchThe strap that holds a saddle on.
“The cinch had loosened by about the second mile.”
2nouneasySomething very easy.
“Don't worry about the driving test; with all your practice, it'll be a cinch.”
cinch is a strap, or an easy thing.
c-INCH → an INCH
The door was one inch wider than the sofa, and the whole thing slid through on the first push while everyone was still arguing about the stairs.
hooks ontoinch
Spanish cincha comes from Latin cincta, a girdle, from cingere, to encircle — the same verb as in precinct and succinct. The easy sense is American and about a hundred and fifty years old.
Spanish
cincha — a belt or girth
Latin
cincta
Occitan
cencha
English, today
cinch
Borrowed from Occitan cencha, from Latin cincta, or from Spanish cincha (“a belt or girth”), from Latin cingula, from Latin cingulum. a doublet of cingle.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire