Word.ws English Dictionary

draw the short straw

draw the short straw verb: to select the shortest straw or other object while drawing straws.

Verb

draw the short straw (third-person singular simple present draws the short straw, present participle drawing the short straw, simple past drew the short straw, past participle drawn the short straw)

  1. To select the shortest straw or other object while drawing straws.
  2. (idiomatic) To be selected to do an undesirable task (by drawing the shortest straw or otherwise).
    • I drew the short straw and got stuck doing the whole project alone.

Forms of draw the short straw

third-person singular presentdraws the short straw
present participledrawing the short straw
pastdrew the short straw
past participledrawn the short straw

Questions about draw the short straw

What does draw the short straw mean?
Draw the short straw means to select the shortest straw or other object while drawing straws.
What part of speech is draw the short straw?
Draw the short straw is a verb.
What is the past tense of draw the short straw?
The past tense of draw the short straw is drew the short straw.

Words near draw the short straw in the dictionary

  1. draw the cloth
  2. draw the curtains
  3. draw the line
  4. draw the long bow
  5. draw the longbow
  6. draw the short straw
  7. draw the sponge across the slate
  8. draw the sponge over the slate
  9. draw the wet sponge across the slate
  10. draw the wet sponge over the slate
  11. draw through

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: draw the short straw (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-draw the short straw.ogg.

Cite this entry: “draw the short straw.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/draw_the_short_straw. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.