straw Hear it!

straw Definition

straw (strô)

noun

  1. hollow stalks or stems of grain after threshing, collectively: used for fodder, for bedding, for making hats, etc.
  2. a single one of such stalks
  3. such a stalk or, now esp., a tube of waxed paper, plastic, etc., used for sucking beverages
  4. something, as a hat, made of straw
  5. something of little or no value; worthless trifle
  6. straw man (sense )
  7. see last straw

Etymology: ME stra < OE streaw, akin to streawian: see strew

adjective

  1. straw-colored; yellowish
  2. made of straw
  3. of little or no value or significance; worthless; meaningless

Related Forms:

straw Idioms

a straw in the wind

an indication of what may happen

grasp (or clutch or catch) at a straw (or straws)

to try any measure, however unlikely, that offers even the least hope
straw Synonyms

straw

n.

hay, fodder, silage. see also hay.

Straws and strawlike fibers include: oat, wheat, barley, rye, rice, buckwheat, bean, pea, buri, jipijapa, jute, raffia, palm, palmetto;

grasp at straws<strong> <em>or</em> </strong>a straw*

panic, attempt, be desperate, try anything, make a hopeless attempt; see also try 1.

a straw in the wind*

evidence, indication, signal; see sign 1.

straw Usage Examples

Preposition: like

  • ox: The lion eating straw like an ox, no longer a predator.

Converse of object

  • plait: Hence Panama Hat, a lightweight hat of plaited straw.
  • chop: Some was on baled ground, some was on chopped straw.
  • bale: We built out of organic, specially baled straw on a foundation of concrete and blocks.
  • thatch: So far a scientifically valid approach to testing the quality of thatching straw or reed has not been devised.

Adjective modifier

  • proverbial: This is the proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back.
  • bendy: Bendy straws are invaluable for sipping drinks held by your birth companions, as you might not want to move your head to drink.
  • final: The final straw was getting 2 in the same day.

Modifies a noun

  • bale: Tim Wright led a workshop on building with straw bales.
  • poll: This is just a straw poll of MEPs - nothing more.
  • hat: Beneath his straw hat the hard grooves of his face told of years under the sun.
  • boater: Only boaters you see in Henley are straw boaters.
  • mulch: Plastic sheeting and straw mulches have long been used in soft fruit such as strawberries.
  • plait: Toys All bunnies are given a twig ball, a straw plait and a tunnel in their shed.

Noun used with modifier

  • barley: Alternatively, sink a wad of organic barley straw sold for ' clearing ' ponds.
  • oat: A further study in 1996 examined oat straw in comparison with spring barley.
  • wheat: A Canadian company called Iogen, a leader in the field, makes its ethanol from wheat straw.
  • bedding: Potato peelings and the outside leaves of cabbages provided cheap food, so bedding straw was the only real outlay for their upkeep.
  • rye: Maturation takes place on rye straw in dark, humid cellers which produces a distinctive musty smell.
  • drinking: The " drinking straws " would be passed through a hole or tear in the foil top.
straw Quotes

Alone until she dies,Bessie Bighead, hired help, born in the workhouse, smelling of the cowshed, snores bass and gruff on a couch of straw in a loft in Salt Lake Farm and picks a posy of daisies in Sunday Meadow to put on the grave of Gomer Owen who kissed her once by the pig-sty when she wasn't looking and never kissed her again although she was looking all the time.

—Thomas, Dylan Marlais

Women are from their very Infancy debarred those advantages, with the want of which they are afterwards reproached, and nursed up in those vices which will hereafter be upbraided to them. So partial are men as to expect brick where theyafford no straw.

—Astell, Mary

We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

—Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)

My aim all along has been (in Ezra Pound's term) the most drastic desuetization of Scottish life and letters, and, inparticular, thede-Tibetanizationofthe Highlands and Islands, and getting rid of the whole gang of high mucky-mucks, famous fatheads, old wives of both sexes, stuffed shirts, hollow men with headpieces stuffed with straw, bird-wits, lookers-under-beds, trained seals, creeping Jesuses, Scots Wha Ha'evers, village idiots, policemen, leaders of white-mouse factions and noted connoisseurs of bread and butter, glorified gangsters, and what 'Billy' Phelps calls Medlar Novelists (the medlar being a fruit that becomes rotten before it is ripe),Commercial Calvinists, makers of 'noises like a turnip', and all the touts and toadies and lickspittles o the English Ascendancy, and their infernal women-folk, and all their skunkoil skulduggery.

—Grieve

And he that strives to touch the stars, Oft stumbles at a straw.

—Spenser, Edmund

   In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half-hung, The floors of plaister, and the walls of dung, On once a flock-bed, but repaired with straw, With tape-tied curtains, never meant to draw, The George and Garter dangling from that bed Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red, Great Villiers lies.

—Pope, Alexander

Theyare sped; And when they list, their lean and flashy songs 578 Grate on their scrannel Pipes of wretched straw, The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, But swollen with wind, and the rank mist they draw, Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread, Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw Daily devours apace, and nothing said, But that two-handed engine at the door, Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.

—Milton,John

   Trust your editor, and you'll sleep on straw.

—Cheever,JohnWilliam

Year's endö still in straw hat and sandals

—Basho, Matsuo

Do you remember an Inn, Miranda? Do you remember an Inn, And the tedding and the spreading Of the straw for a bedding, And the fleas that tease in the High Pyrenees And the wine that tasted of the tar?

—Belloc, (Joseph) Hilaire Pierre