Word.ws English Dictionary

drew the short straw

drew the short straw is the simple past of draw the short straw.

Meaning of draw the short straw

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.

Questions about drew the short straw

What is drew the short straw the simple past of?
Drew the short straw is the simple past of draw the short straw.

Words near drew the short straw in the dictionary

  1. drew rein
  2. drew stumps
  3. drew the cloth
  4. drew the line
  5. drew the long bow
  6. drew the short straw
  7. drew through
  8. drew to a close
  9. drew to an end
  10. drew together
  11. drew up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: drew the short straw (page history and authors); 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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Cite this entry: “drew the short straw.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/drew_the_short_straw. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.