gird up one's loins

present singular third person girds up one's loins · participle present girding up one's loins · participle past girded up one's loins · past girded up one's loins · archaic participle past girt up one's loins · archaic past girt up one's loins · alternative gird one's loins · alternative girdle one's loins

1. idiomaticintransitiveTo prepare oneself for something demanding.

   Then Susan said briskly, "Well, we must just gird up our loins and pitch in."

   1920, Lucy Maud Montgomery, chapter 9, in Rilla of Ingleside

   3 more examples

   Man came into this world, not to sit down and muse, not to befog himself with vain subtleties, but to gird up his loins and to work.

   1857, Herman Melville, chapter 37, in The Confidence Man

   Then Tom girded up his loins, so to speak, and went to work to “get his verses.”

   1876, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter IV, in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Hartford, Conn.: The American Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 42

   King Gyanendra must gird up his loins and prepare himself for all exigencies.

   2004, "Editorial," nepalnews.com (Nepal), vol. 24, no. 6 (Aug 3-19)

   Synonyms: brace oneself, eat one's Wheaties, roll up one's sleeves, shape up, steel oneself, suck it up