straw

plural straws · alternative obsolete strawe

1. countableA dried stalk of a cereal plant.

   Synonyms: litter

2. uncountableSuch 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.
3. countableA drinking straw.
4. countableuncommonuncountableA pale, yellowish beige colour, like that of a dried straw.
5. countablefigurativelyuncountableAnything proverbially worthless; the least possible thing.

   to not care a straw

   to not care at all

   3 more examples

   ‘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.’

   1889, “Robin Hood and the Tanner”, in Francis James Child, editor, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, volume 3, page 138

   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.

   1857, Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers

   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.

   1881, Robert Louis Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque

6. countableuncountableA straw owner.

   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.

   1984 August 4, Larry Goldsmith, “Cops Charged With Setting GCN Fire”, in Gay Community News, page 1

alternative obsolete strawe

1. not comparableMade of straw.

   straw hat

   Synonyms: strawen

2. not comparableOf a pale, yellowish beige colour, like that of a dried straw.
3. figurativelynot comparableImaginary, but presented as real.

   A straw enemy built up in the media to seem like a real threat, which then collapses like a balloon.

   1 more example

   [Y]ou again seem to be building some straw house to pretend the bible does not speak quite clearly against homosexuality being "not natural" […]

   1998 January 4, AgThorn, “Christianity and Homosexuality”, in alt.org.promisekeepers (Usenet)

present singular third person straws · participle present strawing · participle past strawed · past strawed · alternative obsolete strawe

1. idiomatictransitiveTo scatter or to spread loosely.
2. transitiveTo lay straw around plants to protect them from frost.
3. obsoleteslangTo sell straws on the streets in order to cover the giving to the purchaser of things usually banned, such as pornography.

   Townspeople who saw 'strawing' and 'following the wran' as invasions by 'lusty young men of the country' saw Volunteer events in the same way.

   1998, Peter Hart, The I.R.A. and Its Enemies: Violence and Community in Cork, 1916-1923, →ISBN, page 182

   3 more examples

   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.

   1846, James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps, Letters of the kings of England, page 116

   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.

   1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor

   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;

   1884, Nicholas Pocock, Troubles Connected with the Prayer - Book 1549, page 108

1. A surname transferred from the nickname.