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straw

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: Straw

English

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Etymology

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From Middle English straw, from Old English strēaw, from Proto-West Germanic *strau, from Proto-Germanic *strawą (“that which is strewn, straw”), from Proto-Indo-European *strew- (“to spread around, strew”).

Cognate with Saterland Frisian Sträi (“straw”), West Frisian strie (“straw”), Dutch stro (“straw”), German and German Low German Stroh (“straw”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish strå (“straw”), Icelandic strá (“straw”), Walloon strin, Albanian shtrohë (“kennel”).

Pronunciation

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Noun

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straw (countable and uncountable, plural straws)

  1. (countable) A dried stalk of a cereal plant.
  2. (uncountable) Such dried stalks considered collectively; this bulk matter may be a chief salable product, a by-product, fodder, bedding, or green manure, depending on region and on current market conditions.
    Coordinate terms: hay, stover, shaw, trash
  3. (countable) A drinking straw.
  4. (uncommon) A pale, yellowish beige colour, like that of a dried straw.
    straw:  
  5. (figurative, chiefly in the negative) Anything proverbially worthless; the least possible thing.
    to not care a straw ― to not care at all
    • 1889, “Robin Hood and the Tanner”, in Francis James Child, editor, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, volume 3, page 138:
      ‘For thy sword and thy bow I care not a straw,
      Nor all thine arrows to boot;
      If I get a knop upon thy bare scop,
      Thou canst as well shite as shoote.’
    • 1857, Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers:
      He also decided, which was more to his purpose, that Eleanor did not care a straw for him, and that very probably she did care a straw for his rival.
    • 1881, Robert Louis Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque:
      To be deeply interested in the accidents of our existence, to enjoy keenly the mixed texture of human experience, rather leads a man to disregard precautions, and risk his neck against a straw.
  6. A straw owner.
    • 1984 August 4, Larry Goldsmith, “Cops Charged With Setting GCN Fire”, in Gay Community News, page 1:
      The Bromfield Street offices were housed in a dilapidated but heavily-insured building, owned by a straw for a wealthy downtown real estate developer, surrounded by expensive new commercial developments, and in a city renowned for arson-for-profit.

Synonyms

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  • (dried grass): litter (obsolete)

Derived terms

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Descendants

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  • → Japanese: ストロー

Translations

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The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Adjective

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straw (not comparable)

  1. Made of straw.
    Synonym: strawen
    straw hat
  2. Of a pale, yellowish beige colour, like that of a dried straw.
  3. (figurative) Imaginary, but presented as real.
    A straw enemy built up in the media to seem like a real threat, which then collapses like a balloon.

Derived terms

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Terms derived from the noun or adjective straw

Translations

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See also

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Verb

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straw (third-person singular simple present straws, present participle strawing, simple past and past participle strawed)

  1. (transitive, idiomatic) To scatter or to spread loosely.
  2. (transitive) To lay straw around plants to protect them from frost.
  3. (obsolete, slang) To sell straws on the streets in order to cover the giving to the purchaser of things usually banned, such as pornography.
    • 1846, James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps, Letters of the kings of England, page 116:
      It was the custom for the disaffected of those days to make known their grievances by distributing papers on doors of public buildings, and even strawing them in the high way, for the benefit of the chance passenger.
    • 1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor:
      I have already alluded to "strawing," which can hardly be described as quackery. It is rather a piece of mountebankery. […] The strawer offers to sell any passer by in the streets a straw and give the purchaser a paper which he dares not sell. Accordingly as he judges of the character of his audience, so he intimates that the paper is political, libellous, irreligious, or indecent.
    • 1884, Nicholas Pocock, Troubles Connected with the Prayer - Book 1549, page 108:
      Forasmoche as there be diverse lewd and sedicious [folks] personnes [being so given to sedicon as they care not f] whiche do labor nowe to mayntain the traitorous doings of the duke of Somerset, and for that purposed do ivise the most vile false and traitorous bills, papers, and boks that ever were harde off, strawing the same in the stretes, aswel within the Citie of London [and] as in diverse [other] townes and other places in the cuntrey; wherein they do falsly and traitorously travail to slaunder the kings mat Counsail, thinking therby to amase and abuse his Mat good subgietts, which be in a redynes to joyne with the said counsail for the delyverey of the king our soveraign Lords most Royal person, remayning to his great peril and damage in the said dukes custody, and for the restoring of this noble Realme to some better order and quietnes, whiche shalbe the benefite [of every man] of us all universally;
    • 1998, Peter Hart, The I.R.A. and Its Enemies: Violence and Community in Cork, 1916-1923, →ISBN, page 182:
      Townspeople who saw 'strawing' and 'following the wran' as invasions by 'lusty young men of the country' saw Volunteer events in the same way.

Anagrams

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Middle English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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Inherited from Old English strēaw, *strēa, *straw, from Proto-West Germanic *strau, from Proto-Germanic *strawą; thus a doublet of stro.

Forms in /eː/, the Old English collateral form strēow, and the parallel development of Northumbrian Old English strē (“straw”) and trē (“tree”) seem to point to a Proto-West Germanic *streu besides *strau; alternatively, influence from forms of strewen is possible (c.f. Old English strēowodon, Northumbrian strēdun "they strewed"). As pointed out by Hogg and Fulk, Ross' attempt to explain forms Northumbrian Old English strē as analogous to trē (which he in turn deems a borrowing from Old Norse) is strained.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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straw (plural strawes or stren)

  1. Straw; the plant material remaining after threshing.
  2. A stalk; a piece of straw.
  3. (figurative) Anything trifling or worthless.
  4. (rare) A measure of weight for candlewax.
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Descendants

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References

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Polish

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Pronunciation

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Verb

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straw

  1. second-person singular imperative of strawić

Noun

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straw f

  1. genitive plural of strawa
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