straw man
straw man noun: a doll or scarecrow, particularly one stuffed with straw.
Noun
straw man (plural straw men)
- A doll or scarecrow, particularly one stuffed with straw.
- An innocuous person or someone of nominal or lesser importance, as a front man or straw boss.
- An insubstantial concept, idea, endeavor or argument, particularly one deliberately set up to be weakly supported, e.g. by misrepresenting an opponent's argument by broadening or narrowing the scope of a premise, so that it can be easily knocked down; especially to impugn the strength of any related or contrasted thing or idea.
- This Euler inequality recurs as either the cornerstone or the straw man in many theories contained in this book.2018, Lars Ljungqvist and Thomas J. Sargent, Recursive macroeconomic theory, 4th edition, MIT Press, page 4
- Antonyms:
- steelman
- An outline serving as an initial proposal for a project, usually refined iteratively.
- a tentative straw-man spec
- Synonym of straw buyer.
- If a broker or a salesperson attempts to use a straw man to purchase property for which he or she has a listing, the real estate person must specifically disclose in writing to the seller this relationship with the buyer.2000, John W. Reilly, The Language of Real Estate, page 381
- Synonyms:
- straw buyer
Verb
straw man (third-person singular simple present straw mans, present participle straw manning, simple past and past participle straw manned)
- To falsely attribute an insubstantial argument (a straw man argument) to another through direct declaration or indirect implication; to put words in someone's mouth.
- Person A: "Cats have claws."
Person B: "Not all cats have claws: some are declawed."
Person A: "Don't straw man me; I never said all." - 1996 [Vale Press], Ralph H. Johnson, The Rise of Informal Logic, Windsor Studies in Argumentation, 2014, E-edition, page 178,
I have also argued that he is guilty of straw manning Copi and that his charge of shoddy reasoning against Kahane makes use of an equivocation on the concept of fallacy.
- Person A: "Cats have claws."
straw man meaning in Tamil and Malayalam
straw man in Tamil
- உண்மையான உரிமையாளரின் அடையாளத்தை மறைக்க, சொத்து
straw man in Malayalam
- വയ്ക്കോൽ കോലം
Examples of straw man in a sentence
- ¹¹ It should, however, also be noted that in certain cases later "neo-corporatist authors" straw manned the pluralist model, making it easier to criticise (Nedelmann and Meier, 1979: 94).2016, Stijn Smismans, “5: Regulatory Procedure and Participation in the European Union”, in Francesca Bignami, David Zaring, editors...
- My point does not concern the principle of charity or whether Hickman has straw manned postmodernism.2021, John T. Lysaker, Philosophy, Writing, and the Character of Thought, University of Chicago Press, page 39:
Synonyms of straw man
Antonyms
Forms of straw man
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | straw men |
| alternative form | strawman |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | straw mans |
| present participle | straw manning |
| past participle | straw manned |
| past | straw manned |
Origin of straw man
From straw + man. Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1986 passim, shows first known usages for things insubstantial date to 1585-95. Universal Dictionary of the English Language, 1897, Vol 4, p. 4485, notes “man of straw” as “The figure of a man formed of an old suit of clothes stuffed with straw; hence, the mere resemblance of a man; one of no substance or means; an imaginary person.” Compare West Frisian strieman, Dutch strooman, stroman, German Strohmann, Danish stråmand, Swedish stråman, Norwegian stråmann.
Questions about straw man
- What does straw man mean?
- Straw man means a doll or scarecrow, particularly one stuffed with straw.
- What is straw man in Tamil?
- Straw man in Tamil is உண்மையான உரிமையாளரின் அடையாளத்தை மறைக்க, சொத்து. See Straw man meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use straw man in a sentence?
- ¹¹ It should, however, also be noted that in certain cases later "neo-corporatist authors" straw manned the pluralist model, making it easier to criticise (Nedelmann and Meier, 1979: 94).
- What part of speech is straw man?
- Straw man can be a noun or a verb.
- What is the plural of straw man?
- The plural of straw man is straw men.
Words near straw man in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: straw man (page history and authors); straw man (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); straw man (Malayalam Wiktionary) (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-straw man.wav.
Cite this entry: “straw man.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/straw_man. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.