Meaning & use
gird your loins
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Meanings
phraseidiom
Prepare yourself for something difficult, dangerous, or demanding that is about to happen.
Grammar: Used as an instruction or a statement; the possessive changes with the person: gird your loins, gird his loins.
Patterns
- gird your loins for something
- gird your loins to do something
- gird yourself for something
The team girded its loins for a long, hard season.
Gird your loins — the exam results come out tomorrow.
She girded her loins and walked into the meeting to ask for a raise.
phraseidiomhumorousinformal
Get ready to work hard or face a tough challenge, often said in a light or joking way.
Grammar: Common in speech and informal writing as a humorous warning; the tone is usually playful, not serious.
Patterns
- gird your loins for something
- gird your loins and do something
Gird your loins, everyone — it's inventory week.
We girded our loins for a weekend of moving boxes.
Common combinations
- gird your loins for something
- Parents girded their loins for the first day of school.
- gird your loins to do something
- He girded his loins to tell her the truth.
- gird yourself for something
- You'd better gird yourself for a lot of questions.
- gird up your loins
- Gird up your loins; the deadline is Friday.
- time to gird your loins
- It's time to gird your loins and start studying.
Synonyms and how they differ
- brace yourself
- Much more common in everyday English and slightly less literary; use it when you want a plain warning about something unpleasant.
- prepare yourself
- Neutral and general; it does not carry the 'hard struggle ahead' feeling that this idiom has.
- steel yourself
- Suggests making yourself emotionally strong for something painful or frightening, rather than simply getting ready.
Word family
Commonly confused: gird your loins or grid?
gird your loins vs grid
A grid is a pattern of lines or squares. It sounds almost the same as 'gird' but has no connection to this idiom.
Practice
Which sentence uses the idiom correctly?
Choose one answer.
'Gird your loins for something' is the fixed pattern, so 'for the long journey' fits. The other prepositions do not go with this idiom.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “gird your loins”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.