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''garter'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''garter'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260125204041-00-⌔

garter - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Noun

garter (plural garters)

  • A band worn around the leg to hold up a sock or stocking.
  • (heraldry) A bendlet.
    • ✤ Coordinate terms: bendlet, cost, riband
  • (Philippines) An elastic band encircling any article of clothing.
  • (obsolete) One of a set of tapes stretched out horizontally for acrobats and equestrians to leap over as part of a circus act or display of skill.
    • ✤ GRAND TRAMPOLINE, by Mr KING, (from Astley’s Amphitheatre, London) who will introduce a great variety of leaps. Somerset 1 - Somerset in the Air - while in that position lie will fire two pistols. Somerset 2 - Over garters 12 feet high.1
    • ✤ Mrs. Ashton will then make her entree in a beautiful act of equestrianism, entitled “The Mountain Maid,” on a rapid courser, taking an aerial flight through hoops, and over garters, &c.2
    • ✤ Madame HENRIQUES, the greatest Female Rider of the present day over Garters, Banners, through Hoops, Balloons, &c., &c, will appear every evening in her great unrivalled principal act.3
    • ✤ Over men and horses, hoops and garters,
      Lastly through a hogshead of real fire.
      In this way, Mr. K. will challenge the world.      4

Verb

garter (third-person singular simple present garters, present participle gartering, simple past and past participle gartered)

  • (transitive) to fasten with a garter
  • (intransitive) To wear a garter
    • ✤ Lady Hester loathed the coarse, deluded and lecherous Princess Caroline, who showed off to Smith by ‘dancing about, exposing herself, like an opera girl’, and even gartering below the knee:5

Etymology

From Middle English garter, from Old Northern French gartier, from Old French garet (compare Old French jartier, from jaret), from Gaulish ﹡garrā, from Proto-Celtic ﹡garros (“calf, shank”) (compare Cornish gar, Cornish gar, Middle Welsh garr, Old Irish gairr). Cognate with French jarretière.

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈɡɑːtə/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
  • (General American) IPA: /ˈɡɑːɹtɚ/
  • Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)tə(ɹ)

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

  1. 1842 November 11, The Hobart Town Advertiser, Tasmania, page 3, column 6: ↩

  2. 1851 December 25, The Empire, Sydney, page 2, column 2: ↩

  3. 1864 December 12, The South Australian Register, Adelaide, page 1, column 5: ↩

  4. 1967, “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!”, in John Lennon (lyrics), Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, performed by The Beatles: ↩

  5. 2011, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Jerusalem: The Biography – A History of the Middle East, page 385: ↩

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