straw
/stɹɔ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.99 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
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.
Uncountable
adj
Made of straw.
Example Sentences
- "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.’"
- "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."
- "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."
- "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."
- "straw hat"
Etymology
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”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /stɹɔ/
- British English: /stɹɔː/