Also 6–7 wastband, wastebande. [f. WAIST + BAND sb.2]
1. Anything in the fashion of a girdle intended to go round the waist.
1584. B. R., trans. Herodotus, I. 14. Herewith also were offered the chaynes of the Queene his wyfe, not sparing so much her girdles & wastbands, al which he caused to be dedicated at Delphos.
1884. Pall Mall Gaz., 6 Feb., 5/2. The … messages from Gordon … were … concealed in a quill thrust into the hair or sewn on the waistband of the natives employed.
2. esp. A band fitting about the waist that forms the upper part of a lower garment (skirt, pair of trousers or drawers, or the like) and serves to stiffen or maintain it; sometimes used as a receptacle for money, etc.
1686. Plot, Staffordsh., 294. He only took him up by the wastband of his breeches, and hung him upon one of the hooks in the shambles.
1722. De Foe, Col. Jack (1840), 134. I pulled it out of the waistband of my drawers.
1737. Derby Mercury, 23 Feb., 2/2. Before I searched him for his Money, I pulled a Knife out of my Pocket, and with it cut down the Waistband of his Breeches.
1859. Dickens, T. Two Cities, II. v. For the most part reclining with his hands in his waistband, looking at the fire.
1882. ‘Ouida,’ In Maremma, I. 43. A labourer that had got his wages in his waistband.
