straw

CEFRB1

/stɹɔː/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    A dry stem of a grain plant, or a tube for drinking.

  2. 02

    noun

    Extra detail

    A drinking straw.

Examples

  • A man of straw is worth a woman of gold.

  • This is the last straw!

At a glance

Sits at B1 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
5

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

  1. 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.

  2. A dried stalk of a cereal plant.

  3. A pale, yellowish beige colour, like that of a dried straw.

More examples

In context

  • A straw enemy built up in the media to seem like a real threat, which then collapses like a balloon.

  • to not care a straw

  • 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.

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

She used a blank to drink her cold soda from the glass.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

From Middle English straw, from Old English strēaw, from Proto-West Germanic *strau, from Proto-Germanic *strawą (“that which is strewn, straw”), from Proto-Indo-European *strew- (“to spread around, strew”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Sträi (“straw”), West Frisian strie (“straw”), Dutch stro (“straw”), German and German Low German Stroh (“straw”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish strå (“straw”), Icelandic strá (“straw”), Walloon strin, Albanian shtrohë (“kennel”).