Other forms: girded, girding, girds
To gird is to fasten a belt on, or to prepare for action. Gird your loins, girded for battle, gird the tank.
The literal sense is putting on a belt, which is what a soldier did before fighting — gird your loins means to tuck up a robe and get ready, and it survives only as that phrase. In engineering, girding means binding round with a band. Note girder and girdle, from the same encircling.
1verbgirdTo fasten a belt on, or to prepare for action.
“The soldiers girded themselves for another long day of fighting.”
gird is a belting or preparing.
Old English gyrdan means to put a belt around, from a Germanic root meaning to encircle. Girdle, girth and garden come from the same enclosing.
Proto-Indo-European
*gʰerdʰ-
Proto-Germanic
*gurdijaną — to gird
Old English
gyrdan — to put a belt around, to put a girdle around
Middle English
girden
English, today
gird
From Middle English girden, gerden, gurden, from Old English gyrdan (“to put a belt around, to put a girdle around”), from Proto-Germanic gurdijaną (“to gird”), from Proto-Indo-European gʰerdʰ-. Cognate with West Frisian gurdzje, girdzje, Dutch gorden, German gürten, Swedish gjorda, Icelandic gyrða, Albanian ngërthej (“to tie together by weaving, to bind”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA