a band of leather or other material worn around the waist. The girdle was used by the Hebrews, the Greeks, and the Romans, and is still worn in the East. Among the Romans it was used to confine the tunica; and so general was the custom, that the want of a girdle was regarded as strongly presumptive of idle and dissolute propensities. It also formed a part of the dress of the Greek and Roman soldier; and we meet with the phrase cingula depone, to lay aside the girdle as equivalent to quitting the service. It was used as now in the East to carry money in; hence zonam perdere, "to loose one's purse."

The phrase zonam solvere virgineam was appropriated to the ceremony of unloosing the girdle of the bride on the nuptial night. To Venus was attributed by the poets the possession of a girdle which had the miraculous virtue of inspiring love. See CESTUS.

It was an ancient custom in Britain for bankrupts or other insolvent persons to put off and surrender their girdles in open court. The reason of this was, that our ancestors used to carry their purse, keys, and the like, fastened to the girdle; and hence the girdle became a symbol of the condition of the individual. History relates that the widow of Philip I. duke of Burgundy renounced her right of succession by putting off her girdle upon the duke's tomb.