👗 A waist band 🦴 A ring structure ⭕ To encircle 🌳 To cut a ring

to girdle

1 9.0

To cut a ring around a tree trunk to stop the flow of water and nutrients

verb
/ˈɡɜrdəl/

Specialized

: anillar

Any tree girdled by a creeper is either dead or close to it.
girdle the tree
girdle an apple tree

You've got to get those off because those will actually girdle or choke the stem as the plant and grows.

Examples

Field mice girdle an apple tree, pine mice kill the roots.

The Cider House Rules (1999)
Go around and around a tree ripping at the bark, and pretty soon he's girdled it, and that tree is doomed to die.

Fiction book (1990)
Field mice girdle the apple trees in the orchard, causing them to wither.
To kill the unhealthy tree, the gardener decided to girdle it by cutting a ring around its bark.
When a tree is girdled, it stops receiving water and nutrients, leading to its death.

Synonyms

to ring-bark

vsto girdle

Specialized

9.3

To cut away a ring of a tree's outer layer around the trunk so it dies

cuts a circular wound in bark that stops water and nutrient flow

Antonyms

to water

81 1.0

To give plants or animals something to drink

to nourish

49 3.2

To give food and care so a person, animal, or plant grows and stays healthy

Compounds

pelvic girdle

Specialized

1 5.2

A group of bones around the hips that support the legs and connect to the spine

panty girdle

Archaic

1 7.2

Underwear women wear under clothes that gives support to the waist and hips

pectoral girdle

Specialized

1 7.7

The bones near the shoulders that attach the arms to the chest

shoulder girdle

Specialized

1 5.7

The bones that connect the arms to the body, including collarbones and shoulder blades

limb-girdle muscular dystrophy

Specialized

8.0

A disease that slowly makes the shoulder and hip muscles weaker and smaller

Venus's girdle

9.9

A ribbon-shaped sea animal with a jelly body that shines with rainbow colors

How Thorough

to girdle

Specialized

1 9.0

to strip

Specialized

1 6.5

to skin

2 9.0

to peel

126 1.0

to nick

33 3.5

Surface Forms

girdle infinitive

girdled past

girdled past participle

girdling present participle

girdles third person singular

Morphology

girdle = gird (semi-transparent) = gird + le

Derived from 'gird' + '-le'; the specific arboricultural meaning of killing a tree by removing a ring of bark is a specialized consequence not obvious to all learners.

Etymology

The word girdle comes from an old English word gyrd meaning 'belt' or 'to encircle'. So to girdle a tree is like putting a tight 'belt' around it, and by cutting a ring of bark you stop the tree's flow of food and it will die.