overgirding

Verb

overgird (third-person singular simple present overgirds, present participle overgirding, simple past and past participle overgirded or overgirt)

1. (transitive) To gird too closely.
   • Yes, and all wholesome herbs, and all fresh dews, by your violent and hidebound frost; but, when the gentle west winds shall open the fruitful bosom of the earth , thus overgirded by your imprisonment , then the flowers put forth and spring, and then the sun shall scatter the mists, and the...1642, John Milton, The Reason of Church-Government Urged against Prelaty
2. To encircle; to gird over.
   • She is dressed in a long, overgirt Ionic chiton and a heavy himation, one end of which she holds with her extended right hand.1916, George Henry Chase, Catalogue of Arretine Pottery, page 29
3. To encapsulate; to encompass and bind together.
   • If He promises eternal life, there must be an immortality somewhere, that binds the promise together; and to the forces of nature on this side of God, we add such things as we can imagine on the other side of God; and with our bark thus undergirded and overgirded, we can trust immortal hopes, and...1861, Charles Frederic Hudson, Debt and Grace: As Related to the Doctrine of a Future Life, page 359

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