Girt, Girth

Do not feel offended, when doctor or your parent tells you: watch out your girth. Which is the tree that has the widest girth in the world? The semal tree in Nandhaur Wildlife Reserve in the Himayalan state of Uttarakhand in northern India has 54-feet girth.

Girt has two distinct meanings. Girt is an architectural structure: a frame wall in structural engineering; a horizontal structural such as the post and beam in a structure; grit is usually found on bridges, corner posts of a bridge; horizontal structure
Girt gives support to a structure such as to the wall panel to resist from wind; a sheeting rail, a purlin in the roof
Girt is the past tense and past participle of gird (to encircle, band, belt)

Girt as an adjective refers to securing a boat, mooring a boat securely from swinging Girt as a verb refers to gird something, to secure with a girth, to encircle, to bind something to. In one sense, girt also means girth, begird, gird, something. Girts are also used as pillars and columns especially in manufacturing units, and are made of iron. They are fastened with bolts to cleats.

Girth functions as a noun, and verb. Girth is the measurement around the middle of something such as the person’s waist, circumference, width, and perimeter. People with low girth or wide girth find it difficult to find readymade clothes. Socialites too have odd-sized girths. Girth is the band attached to the saddle of a horse and tied to the horse’s stomach in order to keep it in place.

“What is happening to our world is almost too colossal for human comprehension to contain...To contemplate its girth and its circumference, to attempt to define it, to try and fight it all at once, is impossible. The only way to combat it is by fighting specific wars in specific ways.” –Arundhati Roy

The obsolete meaning of girth as a verb is to encircle something, surround; and in this sense it is similar to girt. The boxer’s head was girted with a bandage! Three main water bodies of the Earth (Bay of Bengal, Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean) girth the Indian peninsula.