straw.
A dried stalk of a cereal plant.
Meaning & usage
A dried stalk of a cereal plant.
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.
A drinking straw.
A pale, yellowish beige colour, like that of a dried straw.
Anything proverbially worthless; the least possible thing.
to not care a straw
A straw owner.
Where this word comes from
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 (“side; page; party”), Kashubian and Polish strona (“side; page; party; country”), Russian сторона́ (storoná, “side; country”), страна́ (straná, “country”), Serbo-Croatian стра́на, strána (“side; page”), Slovene stran (“side; page”), Armenian ստերջ (sterǰ, “barren, sterile”), Persian گستردن (gostardan / gustardan, “to extend, spread”), Sanskrit स्तृ (stṛ), स्तॄ (stṝ, “to scatter, spread”).
Made of straw.
straw hat
Of a pale, yellowish beige colour, like that of a dried straw.
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.
Where this word comes from
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 (“side; page; party”), Kashubian and Polish strona (“side; page; party; country”), Russian сторона́ (storoná, “side; country”), страна́ (straná, “country”), Serbo-Croatian стра́на, strána (“side; page”), Slovene stran (“side; page”), Armenian ստերջ (sterǰ, “barren, sterile”), Persian گستردن (gostardan / gustardan, “to extend, spread”), Sanskrit स्तृ (stṛ), स्तॄ (stṝ, “to scatter, spread”).
To scatter or to spread loosely.
To lay straw around plants to protect them from frost.
To sell straws on the streets in order to cover the giving to the purchaser of things usually banned, such as pornography.
Where this word comes from
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 (“side; page; party”), Kashubian and Polish strona (“side; page; party; country”), Russian сторона́ (storoná, “side; country”), страна́ (straná, “country”), Serbo-Croatian стра́на, strána (“side; page”), Slovene stran (“side; page”), Armenian ստերջ (sterǰ, “barren, sterile”), Persian گستردن (gostardan / gustardan, “to extend, spread”), Sanskrit स्तृ (stṛ), स्तॄ (stṝ, “to scatter, spread”).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.