girthline

Noun

girthline (plural girthlines)

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.1988, Turrialba: Revista Interamericano de Ciencias Agricolas- volume 38
   • Pay close attention to the areas that the saddle will touch — withers, back, girthline, and belly.2012, Charlene Strickland, The Basics of Western Riding, →ISBN, page 48
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.1921, Heywood Sumner, A Descriptive Account of Roman Pottery Sites at Sloden and Black Heath Meadow, Linwood, New Forest
   • Breslau let out another hole in its belt recently, extending its municipal girthline to include a number of suburbs.1928, Geographic School Bulletins, page 7
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...1899, The Century - Volume 57, page 267
   • As there was no time to lose and noticing the Granary's launch tied with a girthline to a half-buried cannon, with a killick suspended from the stern reel cable, he quickly gained the small dock, untied the line, and jumped into the little vessel, which lurched to one side like a nutshell.1998, Vitorino Nemésio, Francisco Cota Fagundes, Stormy Isles: An Azorean Tale, page 309