whopstraw

plural whopstraws

1. A rustic, a clod-hopper.

   Charles had not been employed at Darracott Place above six months, but he was not such a whopstraw as to make the least noise in the performance of his duties when his lordship was out of humour.

   1959, Georgette Heyer, chapter 1, in The Unknown Ajax

2. A thresher, one who separates the grain from the chaff by beating with a flail.

   Parker Clare became a flail-thresher, a whopstraw

   a. 1864, John Clare, edited by J. W. Tibble, Selected Poems, published 1965