straw
UK /stɹɔː/ · US /stɹɔ/ noun, adjective, verb, proper noun
Also a form of strew
Forms straws strawing strawed strawe
- noun (countable) A dried stalk of a cereal plant.
- noun (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.
- noun (countable) A drinking straw.
- noun (uncommon) A pale, yellowish beige colour, like that of a dried straw.
- noun (figurative, chiefly in the negative) Anything proverbially worthless; the least possible thing. “to not care a straw”
- noun A straw owner.
- adjective Made of straw. “straw hat”
- adjective Of a pale, yellowish beige colour, like that of a dried straw.
- adjective (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.”
- verb (transitive, idiomatic) To scatter or to spread loosely.
- verb (transitive) To lay straw around plants to protect them from frost.
- verb (obsolete, slang) To sell straws on the streets in order to cover the giving to the purchaser of things usually banned, such as pornography.
- proper noun A surname transferred from the nickname.
Synonyms
litter strawen chaff husk shuck stalk stubble pale yellow wheat drinking straw strew
Etymology
From Middle English straugh, strauȝ, straw, strawe, strea, streuw, from Old English strēaw, strēow, from Proto-West Germanic *strau, from Proto-Germanic *strawą (“that which is strewn, straw”), from Proto-Indo-European *strew- (“to spread, strew”), from *sterh₃- (“to extend, spread”), from *ster- (“barren, infertile”).
Cognate with Scots strae (“straw”), Yola stre, strew (“straw”), Saterland Frisian Sträi (“straw”), Dutch stro (“straw”), German Stroh (“straw”), Luxembourgish Stréi (“straw”), Vilamovian śtruf, śtruw, štrūv (“straw”), Yiddish שטרוי (shtroy, “straw”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish strå (“straw”), Icelandic strá (“straw”); also Cornish stras (“flat valley; lowland”), Irish and Scottish Gaelic srath (“bottom, holm; river valley”), Welsh ystrad (“valley”), Latin struo (“place one thing on top of another; to build, compose; to devise, ready; to arrange, place; to head up”), Greek στρώμα (stróma, “mattress; layer, sheet”), Albanian shtrij (“to stretch; to lay; to run fast”), shtroj (“to scatter, spread”), Belarusian старана́ (staraná, “side; country”), Bulgarian and Macedonian страна́ (straná, “side; country”), Czech and Slovak strana (“side; page; party”), Kashubian and Polish strona (“side; page; party; country”), Russian сторона́ (storoná, “side; country”), страна́ (straná, “country”), Serbo-Croatian стра́на, strána (“side; page”), Slovene stran (“side; page”), Armenian ստերջ (sterǰ, “barren, sterile”), Persian گستردن (gostardan / gustardan, “to extend, spread”), Sanskrit स्तृ (stṛ), स्तॄ (stṝ, “to scatter, spread”).
From Middle English straw, as a nickname for a thin person or one with straw-coloured hair, or an occupational name for a dealer in straw.
Webster’s 1913
- verb To spread or scatter. See Strew, and Strow. Chaucer.
- noun A stalk or stem of certain species of grain, pulse, etc., especially of wheat, rye, oats, barley, more rarely of buckwheat, beans, and pease.
- noun The gathered and thrashed stalks of certain species of grain, etc.; as, a bundle, or a load, of rye straw.
Etymology [OE. straw, stre, stree, AS. streáw, from the root of E. strew; akin to OFries. stre, D. stroo, G. stroh, OHG. stro, Icel. stra, Dan. straa, Sw. strå. *166. See Strew.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “straw”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details