straw

UK/stɹɔː//stɹɔ/

straw noun: a dried stalk of a cereal plant.

Noun

straw (countable and uncountable, plural straws)

(countable) A dried stalk of a cereal plant.

Synonyms:

litter
(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.
(countable) A drinking straw.
(uncommon) A pale, yellowish beige colour, like that of a dried straw.
(figuratively) Anything proverbially worthless; the least possible thing.
- to not care a straw
- ‘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
A 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

Adjective

straw (not comparable)

Made of straw.
- straw hat
Synonyms:

strawen
Of a pale, yellowish beige colour, like that of a dried straw.
(figuratively) 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.
- [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)

Verb

straw (third-person singular simple present straws, present participle strawing, simple past and past participle strawed)

(idiomatic, transitive) To scatter or to spread loosely.
(transitive) To lay straw around plants to protect them from frost.
(obsolete, slang) To sell straws on the streets in order to cover the giving to the purchaser of things usually banned, such as pornography.
- 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...1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor

Proper noun capitalized: Straw

Straw

A surname transferred from the nickname.

straw meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

straw in Hindi

dried stalks considered collectively: पुआल puāl, तिनका tinkā

straw in Urdu

dried stalks considered collectively: تنکا tiṅkā, پوال puāl

straw in Bengali

dried stalks considered collectively: খড় khoṛ

More languagesFewer languages

straw in Malayalam: വയ്ക്കോൽ vaykkōl, കച്ചിൽ kaccil
straw in Kannada: ಒಣಹುಲ್ಲು, ಬಯ್ಹುಲ್ಲು, ಹೀರು ಕಡ್ಡಿ, ಬೇಡದ ಕಸ
straw in Sanskrit: पल pala, कडङ्गर kaḍaṅgara
straw in Assamese: খেৰ kher
straw in Nepali: पराल parāl
straw in Pashto: پروړه Proṛa
straw in Tagalog: dayami, munti
straw in Arabic: قَشّ qašš
straw in Malay: jerami
straw in Indonesian: jerami
straw in Persian: کاه kâh, پوشال pušâl, نی ney
straw in Thai: ฟาง faang
straw in Vietnamese: rơm
straw in Myanmar: ကောက်ရိုး kauk-rui:

Examples of straw in a sentence

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:
I have already alluded to "strawing," which can hardly be described as quackery.1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor:
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:

All 40 example sentences with straw

Synonyms of straw

Forms of straw

Noun
plural	straws
alternative form (obsolete)	strawe
Verb
third-person singular present	straws
present participle	strawing
past participle	strawed
past	strawed

Plural of straw: straws

Origin of straw

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”). Cognates 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...

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.

Words formed from straw

Phrases with straw

45 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with straw

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about straw

What does straw mean?: Straw means a dried stalk of a cereal plant.
What is straw in Hindi?: Straw in Hindi is पुआल (puāl), तिनका (tinkā). See Straw meaning in Hindi.
How do you use straw in a sentence?: 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.
What part of speech is straw?: Straw can be a noun, an adjective, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce straw?: Straw is pronounced /stɹɔː/ (UK).
What is the plural of straw?: The plural of straw is straws.

Words near straw in the dictionary

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-straw.ogg.

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