different between jackstraw vs straw

English

Noun

jackstraw (plural jackstraws)

1. (usually plural) One of the pieces used for the game variously called jackstraws or pick-up-sticks.
   • 1856, Matthew C. Perry and Francis L. Hawks, Narrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron to the China Seas and Japan, Washington: A.O.P. Nicholson, Volume 1, Chapter 23, p. 466,^[1]

     It was a cheerful reminder of one’s childhood, and another bond of sympathy between the various branches of the human race, however remotely separated from each other, to find the little shaven-pated lads playing ball in the streets of Hakodadi, or jackstraws within the domestic circle at home.

   • 1907, John Millington Synge, The Playboy of the Western World, Act 3,^[2]

     If I wasn’t a good Christian, it’s on my naked knees I’d be saying my prayers and paters to every jackstraw you have roofing your head, and every stony pebble is paving the laneway to your door.

   • 1912, Mary Johnston, Cease Firing, Chapter 5,^[3]

     It was late February before the expedition entered the Coldwater, early March before it approached the Tallahatchie. Here it encountered afresh felled trees like endless bundles of jackstraws, thrown vigorously, crossed under water at every imaginable angle.

   • 1983, Jack Vance, Lyonesse, Chapter 24,

     The landlord strode on jackstraw legs across the room.

2. (dated) An insignificant person.
   • 1959, Richard Rovere, Senator Joe McCarthy, Cleveland: Meridian, 1963, “What He Was and What He Did—1,” p. 4,^[4]

     At the start of 1950, he was a jackstraw in Washington. Then he discovered Communism—almost by inadvertence, as Columbus discovered America, as James Marshall discovered California gold. By the spring of the year, he was a towering figure […]

Synonyms

• (game piece): spillikin

Derived terms

• care a jackstraw

Adjective

jackstraw (not comparable)

1. Resembling a bundle of jackstraws that has been strewn on a surface.
   • 1906, Henry Milner Rideout, “Captain Christy” in The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 98, Number 4, October, 1906, p. 452,^[5]

     Along the grass-grown wharves,—silver-gray piles which crumbled at the ends into a jackstraw heap of rotting logs,—there was no human stir.

   • 1990, Stephen King, “The Library Policeman” in Four past Midnight,

     He threw himself down on the far side and saw a white, hellishly misshapen creature pulling itself from beneath a jackstraw tumble of atlases and travel volumes.

2. (obsolete, of a person) Of no substance or worth.
   • 1754, Samuel Richardson, The History of Sir Charles Grandison, London, Volume 7, Letter 11, p. 57,^[6]

     […] if you are my daughter, you shall wear these for your father’s sake!—How now, madam! Refuse me! I command you on your obedience to accept of this—I will not be a Jack-straw father—

English

Etymology

From Middle English straw, from Old English str?aw, from Proto-West Germanic *strau, from Proto-Germanic *straw? (“that which is strewn”). Cognate with Dutch stro, Walloon strin, German Stroh, Norwegian and Swedish strå, Albanian shtrohë (“kennel”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /st???/
• (US) IPA^(key): /st??/
• (cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /st??/

Noun

straw (countable and uncountable, plural straws)

1. (countable) A dried stalk of a cereal plant.
2. (uncountable) Such dried stalks considered collectively.
3. (countable) A drinking straw.
4. A pale, yellowish beige colour, like that of a dried straw.

5. (figuratively) Anything proverbially worthless; the least possible thing.
   • 1889, Robin Hood and the Tanner, Francis James Child (editor), The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Volume 3, page 138:

     ‘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.’

   • 1857, Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers:

     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.

   • 1881, Robert Louis Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque:

     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.

Derived terms

• strawhead
• strawberry

Translations

Adjective

straw (not comparable)

1. Made of straw.

   Synonym: strawen

2. Of a pale, yellowish beige colour, like that of a dried straw.
3. (figuratively) Imaginary, but presented as real.

Translations

Derived terms

See also

Verb

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

1. To lay straw around plants to protect them from frost.
2. (obsolete, slang) To sell straws on the streets in order to cover the giving to the purchaser of things usually banned, such as pornography.

Anagrams

• Swart, swart, warts

Middle English

Alternative forms

• strau, strawe, straugh, strau?, strawwe, stre, stree, stra, straa, strey, streaw, strew, streuw

Etymology

From Old English str?aw, from Proto-Germanic *straw?. Some forms are influenced by Old Norse strá.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /strau?/, /stre?/
• (Northern ME) IPA^(key): /str??/

Noun

straw (plural strawes or stren)

1. The remaining plant material after cultivation; halm, straw.
2. An individual piece or section of straw.
3. (figuratively) Anything slight or worthless; the least possible thing.
4. (rare) A measure of weight for candlewax.

Related terms

• strawbery
• strawen

Descendants

• English: straw
• Scots: strae
• Yola: stre, strew

References

• “strau, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-07-19.

Polish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /straf/

Verb

straw

1. second-person singular imperative of strawi?

Noun

straw f

1. genitive plural of strawa

Further reading

• straw in Polish dictionaries at PWN