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Straw   Listen
verb
Straw  v. t.  To spread or scatter. See Strew, and Strow.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Straw" Quotes from Famous Books



... garlands of gold, with hair-bands silver-tinseled, on her forehead strings of pearls, and with blue stockings on her feet, and red strings in her shoes. But if the game-bag came back empty, she was described as a hateful, hideous thing, robed in untidy rags, and shod with straw. She carries the keys to the treasury of Metsola, her husband's abode, and her bountiful chest of honey, the food of all the forest-deities, is earnestly sought for by all the weary hunters of Suomi. These deities are invariably described as gracious and ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.

... branches, sweeping outward and downward, met, making a whispering, living canopy overhead, through which the sunshine fell in tremulous shafts, upon the shining coats and gleaming harness of the horses, upon Ormiston's clear-cut, bronzed face and upright figure, and upon the even, straw-coloured gravel of the road. The said road is raised by about three feet above the level of the land on either side. On the left, the self-sown firs grow in close ranks. The ground below them is bare but for tussocks ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... more Charley turned to his wireless as a drowning man clutches at a straw. He saw that when Lew had gone and he had nothing but his own powers to depend upon, the wireless was going to be like a life-line to him. He realized that to have the powerful battery he wanted was imperative, if he was to have even a chance to make good in his efforts to ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss

... Bunker children were not altogether disappointed at this time. There was a run made by one of the covered wagons for the fort, and the little Bunkers, dressed in odds and ends of calico and sunbonnets and old-time straw hats, sat in the back of the wagon and screamed as they were told to while the six mules that drew the wagon raced for the fort with the ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's • Laura Lee Hope

... wound up; but at first it seemed as if Colombia was going to make Panama look like one of the $3.98 kind, with dents made in it in the factory, like they wear at North Beach fish fries. For mine, I played the straw-hat crowd to win; and they gave me a colonel's commission over a brigade of twenty-seven men in the left wing and second ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... forward close to the scalp; their figures gowned, the handles of the two swords projecting closely together from the left side of their garments, and the feet resting in stirrups of slipper form, which my memory says were of straw-work; but of that I am less sure. This equipment was completed by a painted fan stuck in the belt, and at times an opened paper umbrella. I have been passenger in the same boat with some of these warriors, accoutred as above, and using their fans as required, while engaged ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan

... haven't they? more than once, and I think their present color is their worst. It must be very uncomfortable to wear, too, with all those pins sticking out of it. Colored glass they are made of, aren't they? They are not pretty, you know. I'll buy you a hat, if you like, a plain felt or straw, with just a few flowers. ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... the fisherman's house were only of straw done up in bags, and the bed-clothes were very light, but the children slept soundly and found everything as comfortable as possible. Terry was wakened by a little kid licking her face, and started up in great astonishment and delight. It was a pet kid, and had rushed into the house as ...
— Terry - Or, She ought to have been a Boy • Rosa Mulholland

... in an open space. As his falls are violent, the floor must be very soft. The best place is a space boarded off with partitions six or seven feet high, and on the floor a deep layer of tan or sand or saw-dust, on which, a thick layer of straw has been spread; but the floor must not be too soft; if it is, the horse will sink on his knees without fighting, and without the lesson of exhaustion, which is so important. To throw a horse for a surgical operation, the floor cannot be too soft: the enclosure should be about thirty ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey

... pair of brown, earthy overalls, a blue, cotton shirt, and a straw hat, full of holes, was helping Mr. Tomkins dig potatoes, up on Barly Hill. From the field on the slopes above the village, he could see the hills across the valley, misted in the sun. Above him stretched the shining sky, thronged ...
— Autumn • Robert Nathan

... a place wonderfully populous in children; English children, with governesses reading novels as they walk down the shady lanes of trees, or nursemaids interchanging gossip on the seats; French children with their smiling bonnes in snow-white caps, and themselves - if little boys - in straw head-gear like bee-hives, work-baskets and church hassocks. Three years ago, there were three weazen old men, one bearing a frayed red ribbon in his threadbare button-hole, always to be found walking together among these children, before dinner- time. ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens

... same time with news of the Battle of Leipzig came letters from home which informed Gallatin that his nomination as envoy had been rejected by the Senate. This was the last straw. To remain inactive as an envoy was bad enough; to stay on unaccredited seemed impossible. He determined to take advantage of a hint dropped by his friend Baring that the British Ministry, while declining mediation, was not unwilling to treat directly with the American commissioners. ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... With his hollow, clean-shaved cheeks, a heavy grey moustache and eyes without any expression whatever, clad always in a spotless sleeping suit much befrogged in front, which left his lean neck wholly uncovered, and with his bare feet in a pair of straw slippers, he wandered silently amongst the houses in daylight, almost as dumb as an animal and apparently much more homeless. I don't know what he did with himself at night. He must have had a place, a hut, a palm-leaf shed, some sort of hovel where ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad

... his learned eloquence glowed responsively, but he had not been too drunk to miss the wry faces the girl began to make, nor to be suddenly struck dumb with shame as he realised the cause. Lying on the straw of inn-stables in garments one has not changed for seven weeks does not commend even a Rabbi to a dainty maiden. The spell of good luck was broken, and since then the learned tramp had known nothing but humiliation ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... moments, unforgettable moments, and it was on purpose to hinder her from running off to Bergen that he had given her so little money for the journey. And now she had gone there after all. A few of her clothes still hung in the house, and there was a straw hat with birds' wings on, wrapped up in a paper, in the loft, but she did not come to fetch them. Eyah, maybe he took it to heart a little, only a little. And as if to jeer at him, as a mighty jest in his trouble, came the paper he had ordered for her every week, and ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun

... requiring the farmers within seventy miles of head quarters, to thrash out one half of their grain by the first of February, and the residue by the first of March, under the penalty of having the whole seized as straw. ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall

... superfluous all outward demonstration of personal sanctity. On the other hand, he obviously elevated the tone of our little society; the stout captains, who feared nothing else, feared their worser selves in his presence. None of them knew or cared a straw for his literary genius and its productions; but they were aware of something in him which they respected as well as liked, and there was no member of the company who was ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne

... necessary to give the cow a comfortable stall and protect her from any kind of exposure. No bulky drenches should be administered. If she lies stretched out, the fore parts should be raised by packing straw under her. This is necessary in order to prevent pneumonia, caused by regurgitated feed entering the air passages and lungs. It is very advisable to give her the following mixture for a few days after the attack: tincture of ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.

... covered with snow and the soil is frozen deeply, it is sometimes curious to note the effect of openings leading down to deep underdrains. The snow will be melted away by the warm air coming up from the unfrozen earth. Even in an uncovered drain three feet deep, a little straw or loose earth will generally protect the ...
— The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... abreast of him now. He ran out of the tall grass, waving his straw hat above his head in the faint hope of attracting attention. But he did not go far, for he found to his alarm that when he turned back again the clump of mesquite was scarcely distinguishable from the rest of the plain. This settled all question of his going. Even if he reached ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte

... cloves, cinnamon and allspice. Boil vinegar and sugar together, skim and add spices. Take the blossom end from the apples and put as many in at a time as will lie on the top of the vinegar without crowding and cook until easily pierced with a straw. Seal in ...
— My Pet Recipes, Tried and True - Contributed by the Ladies and Friends of St. Andrew's Church, Quebec • Various

... Though he had bit me, should have stood that night Against my fire; and wast thou fain, poor father, To hovel thee with swine, and rogues forlorn, In short and musty straw?" ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... I thought it was one of the servants, for they all appeared to be out, but she had on a striped India shawl, such as ladies wore in travelling, and a straw bonnet, from which the veil had blown back. These were not things worn by servants; besides, her air and walk convinced me that this woman was of another class. As she entered the door I saw her face for a single moment, ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens

... upon the subject. I do not believe that any important steps will be taken in the matter. I have known a master mad with fear, when he saw an old gun-stock protruding from beneath one of those dog-heaps of straw and sacking called beds, in the negro-quarters. The fact that it had been thrown away by himself, had no barrel attached to it, and was picked up by a colored boy who had a passion for carving, hardly prevented the man from giving the innocent ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... them seems so much more oppressive on them; they have no escape from it. There is much also in ideas and associations. On a road-side, or on the borders of a bog, the dusty colour of the cabin walls, the potato patch around it, the green scraughs or damp brown straw which form its roof, all the appurtenances, in fact, of the cabin, seem suited to the things around it. But in a town this is not so. It evidently should not be there—its squalidness and filth are all that strike you. Poverty, to be picturesque, should be rural. Suburban misery is as hideous ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope

... private chapel where I sat with Monsieur and Madame de Chessel and the Abbe de Quelus, I cast an eager glance at another lateral chapel occupied by the duchess and her daughter, the count and his children. The large straw hat which hid my idol from me did not tremble, and this unconsciousness of my presence seemed to bind me to her more than all the past. This noble Henriette de Lenoncourt, my Henriette, whose life I longed to garland, was praying ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac

... weaver standing before him.] How often have I told you that you must bring cleaner cloth? What sort of mess is this? Knots, and straw, ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann

... Americans smile superior, as I did at the Mayor's table; and yet, I fancy, we lose some very agreeable titillations of the heart in consequence of our proud perogative of caring no more about our President than for a man of straw, or a stuffed scarecrow straddling in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... which they had interwoven European silk; cloths and bags made of grass, and fancifully coloured; ornaments made of the same materials; ropes made from a species of aloes, and others, remarkably strong, from grass and straw; fine string made from the fibres of the roots of trees; soap of two kinds, one of which was formed from an earthy substance; pipe-bowls made of clay, and of a brown red; one of these, which came from the village of Dakard, ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson

... Duke of Wellington, a book about sporting, and a book about nothing in particular, beautifully illustrated with pictures. Down came papa with his nice white hair, and mamma with her nice lace cap; down came young mister with the pink face and straw-colored whiskers, and young miss with the plump cheeks and the large petticoats. Don't suppose there was the least unfriendliness on my side; I always began with them in the same way—I insisted on shaking hands all round. ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... cloth of gold," he said, "nor Saint Joseph a precious mitre; and the blessed Redeemer Himself who made all things had but straw to His bed. And if our new cope is gone, we can make our processions in the old one, and please God no less. Nay, we may please Him more perhaps, for He knows that it is by no will of ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson

... in these faculties? The boy who will be great is always discontented with his work, ready to rub out and begin again. He follows a bee, and never quite touches that which drew him on. Plainly, the mere ability to do is a dry straw, but through it our seeker tastes an intoxicating, seductive liquor, from which he ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various

... carrying vast loads of produce from the outlying villages to Nice. Of the drivers of these we made careful inquiries, though we often had to wake them for the purpose, as they lay asleep on the top of the load of hay or straw. One of these men thanked us for arousing him, and would have detained us to relate a tale of some carter who, at a spot called the "Saut du Francais," had been thrown thus, as he slept, from the summit of his hay cart, and was ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman

... was the king, and no reasoning of mine could persuade him to the contrary. In vain I pointed out to him a hundred similar dignitaries, in the proper exercise of their vocation, on the hammer-cloths; he cared not a straw—this was not showing him one inside; and a gentleman inside of a carriage, who wore so fine a coat, and a cocked hat in the bargain, could be nothing less than some dignitary of the empire; and why ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... it was the city of pristine ideals, of irresistible potency, of Anchises' pageant of heroes. When he walked through the Forum he saw not only the glistening monuments in their new marble veneer, but beyond these, in the far distant past, the straw hut of Romulus and the sacred grove on the Capitoline where the spirit of Jove had guarded a folk of simpler piety.[2] And down the centuries he beheld the heroes, the law-givers, and the rulers, who had made the Forum the court of a world-wide empire. The Rome of his own day was too feverish, ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank

... impressions for himself, instead of sitting indoors at a little round table, while a sweet-voiced teacher suggests that he build a stone wall with his wooden blocks, or make a rainbow out of strips of coloured paper, or plant straw trees in bead flower-pots. Such teaching fills the mind with artificial associations that must be got rid of, before the child can develop independent ideas out ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller

... enjoyed to the full the dignity of ownership. How glad her mother would be when there was a decent water-pail in the house, plates enough of one kind to go round, and a table-cloth that was not nearly all darns! Then her mother should have a new shawl and bonnet, and each of the boys a straw hat and a bright necktie, and she would have something to put in the plate every Sunday in church, and to add to the missionary collection of the Sunday-school class. Perhaps, even, she could give something toward a present that the ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow

... at Jonathan's—to a vile spunging-house in Little Bell Alley, Moorfields; but the keeper of the House stood my friend, and procured a Bail for me in the shape of an Honest Gentleman, who was to be seen every day about Westminster Hall with a straw in his shoe, and for a crown and a dinner at the eating-house would suddenly become worth five hundred a year, or at least swear himself black in the face that such was his estate:—which was all that was required. And when it came to justifying of Bail before the Judges, what so easy ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... afford us a glimpse of the daily life. In the early morning the chilly mountain air drives the people from their mats to the yard, where they squat about the fires (p. 132). As it becomes light, part of the women begin pounding out the rice from its straw and husks (p. 144), while others depart for the springs to secure water (p. 101). In planting time husband and wife trudge together to the fields, where the man plants the seeds or cuttings, and his wife assists by pouring on water (p. 107). In midday, unless it is the busy ...
— Traditions of the Tinguian: A Study in Philippine Folk-Lore • Fay-Cooper Cole

... was opened when Maldon was away on one of his mysterious journeys, and lo! no Andrew was there, but only a beam of oakwood stuffed out with straw to the shape of a man and sewn up in a blanket. For the real Andrew, or rather what was left of him, lay, it may be remembered, in another grave that was supposed to be filled by Sir ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard

... sheves, and call it rede, and therewith they thacke theyr houses.'' He recommends the practice of setting up corn in shocks, with two sheaves to cover eight, instead of ten sheaves as at present—probably owing to the straw being then shorter. The corn was commonly housed; but if there be a want of room, he advises that the ricks be built on a scaffold and not upon the ground. The fallow received a third ploughing in September, and was sown about Michaelmas. "Wheat is moost commonlye ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... the sophomores were thoroughly aroused. The freshmen had long been carrying things with a high hand, but the rushing of a lot of them who were in dress suits and bound for a swell party was the straw that broke the ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish

... Gertrude Van Deusen sat alone for some time. She had caught only at a straw,—but it might indicate which way a very strong wind had blown or might now be blowing. Was this the reason the board of aldermen were so opposed to her proposed bill? Evidently, there was need of a secret and courageous study of the situation. Corruption was in the very air; she had ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow

... who seemed out of place amid such great eagerness and curiosity. He was a tall, meager man, who dragged one leg stiffly when he walked, dressed in a wretched brown coat and dirty checkered trousers that fitted his lean, bony limbs tightly. A straw sombrero, artistic in spite of being broken, covered an enormous head and allowed his dirty gray, almost red, hair to straggle out long and kinky at the end like a poet's curls. But the most notable thing about this man was not his clothing or his European features, ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal

... (Darvon, Lomotil). Opium is the brown, gummy exudate of the incised, unripe seedpod of the opium poppy. Opium poppy (Papaver somniferum) is the source for the natural and semisynthetic narcotics. Poppy straw is the entire cut and dried opium poppy-plant material, other than the seeds. Opium is extracted from poppy straw in commercial operations that produce the drug for medical use. Qat (kat, khat) is a stimulant from the ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... flashed by me, and the swords swept round, And in war's hopeless tangle was I bound, But straw and stubble were the cold points found, For still thy hands led ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris

... back," said Simon to his wife, "you must have a good meal ready. Carry straw into the school-room, tear up your old sheets into bandages, and send to ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina

... wring her hands; but the cow surprised at such odd noises in her throat, opened her mouth and let him drop out. His mother clapped him into her apron, and ran home with him. Tom's father made him a whip of a barley straw to drive the cattle with, and being one day in the field, he slipped into a deep furrow. A raven flying over, picked him up with a grain of corn, and flew with him to the top of a giant's castle, by the seaside, where he left him; and old Grumbo the giant, coming soon after to walk upon ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various

... fox protested that he did not care a straw for the cat; nothing could now appease the griffiness but his positive assurance that come what would poor puss should be brought to the cave and boiled for ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... boots. He had on a suit of fresh white flannels and over his shoulders, for fear of the evening air being chilly after this hot day, he had a little cape of a military cut, like those in which young ladies at music-halls enact the part of colonels. He had a straw-hat on, with a blue riband, a pink shirt and a red tie, rather loose and billowy. His face was pink and round, with blue eyes, a short nose and very red lips. An almost complete absence of eyebrow was made up for ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson

... and ambitions, and cares, and sorrows, and duties, and family responsibilities, jostle and hustle Him out of your minds and hearts. You cannot do it if, like John Bunyan's man with the muckrake, you keep your eyes always down on the straw at your feet, and never lift them to the crown above. How many men in Manchester walk its streets from year's end to year's end, and never look up to the sky except to see whether they must take their umbrellas with them or not? And so all the magnificence and beauty of the daily heavens, and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... wage of an able-bodied young man is $12 per annum, with food and lodging, straw shoes, and free shaving—an important item in a country where heads must be shaved three or four times a month. His clothing costs about $4 per annum. In ten years he may buy one third of an acre of land ($150 per acre) and necessary implements. In ten years more he may ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe

... been governed by love, without selfish views; and that having resolved to make the love of GOD the end of all his actions, he had found reasons to be well satisfied with his method. That he was pleased when he could take up a straw from the ground for the love of GOD, seeking Him only, and nothing ...
— The Practice of the Presence of God the Best Rule of a Holy Life • Herman Nicholas

... the Tourainean word "bourrier" which has no other meaning than a "bit of straw." But there are pretty little straws, yellow, polished, and shining, the delight of children, whereas the bourrier is straw discolored, muddy, sodden in the puddles, whirled by the tempest, crushed under feet ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... remember is the time of the sickness, and my father that was making four straw mats for four brothers that died, and that couldn't afford coffins. The bodies were put in the mats and were tied up in them. And the second thing I remember is the people digging in the stubble after the oats and the wheat; to see would they meet a potato, ...
— The Kiltartan History Book • Lady I. A. Gregory

... he stopped and looked in. He saw Lanpher sitting behind his big homemade desk. Lanpher was watching him. At one side of the desk, on a chair tilted back against the wall, sat Luke Tweezy. Luke was chewing a straw. His eyes were half closed, but Racey detected their glitter. Luke Tweezy was not overlooking any ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White

... the subtleties of astronomical calculations; they only attempted to satisfy problems about the motion of bodies in the sky, and told us nothing of physical fact; they gave us, as Prometheus gave to Jove, the outside skin of the offering, which was stuffed inside with straw and rubbish. He entirely failed to see that before dealing with physical astronomy, it must be dealt with mathematically. "It is well to remark," as Mr. Ellis says, "that none of Newton's astronomical discoveries could have been made if astronomers had not continued to render ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church

... speaking to the servants, a serving-man of his came raving out of another room, with a naked rapier in his hand, and set it just to my side. I looked steadfastly on him and said "Alack for thee, poor creature! what wilt thou do with thy carnal weapon, it is no more to me than a straw." The standers-by were much troubled, and he went away in a rage; but when news came of it to his master, he turned him out ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin

... easily be cleaned by scouring with sand every Saturday. The beds were bottomed with rope which was run backward and forward from one rail to the other. On this framework was placed a mattress of wheat straw. Each spring the mattresses were emptied and refilled with ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration

... almost continuous forest of cocoanut and breadfruit. Oranges and bananas, mangoes and limes, surrounded the cabins, most of which were built of rough planks and roofed with iron. Here and there I saw a native house of straw matting thatched with palm leaves, a sign of a poverty that could not reach the hideous, but ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... country but sworn to at every hundred-mote and town-mote by order from the king. "They have given me five-and-twenty over-kings," cried John in a burst of fury, flinging himself on the floor and gnawing sticks and straw in his impotent rage. But the rage soon passed into the subtle policy of which he was a master. After a few days he left Windsor; and lingered for months along the southern shore, waiting for news of the ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green

... friend, never feare any woman, unlesse thyselfe be made of straw, or some such drie matter, and she of lightning. Audacitie prospers above probability in all Worldly matters. Dost not thou know that Fortune governes them without order, and therefore reason the mother of ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various

... house, and round to the stable, where the horses were lying on beds of clean straw. They got up at the sound of their master's voice, but were so quiet in all their movements that it seemed as though they knew what was in the air. In five minutes they were free from the buildings, and the travellers mounted. The road lay before them in dappled lights and shadows ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green

... and, fawn-colored like herself, they fitted and suited her to equal perfection. Morna thought that she might even go to church in the coat and skirt, now and again during the summer, and she had a brown straw hat with fine feathers of the lighter shade which she made peculiarly her own; but this she had discarded as too grand for an informal call, for Hugh had been summoned to a sick-bed at the last moment, and might be detained too late to follow. But the Steels ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung

... joined by several West Indiamen. This place can scarcely be called even a village, there being so few houses, and those straggling. The first time I went on shore I was called to by a stout man wearing a linen jacket and trousers, with an immense broad-brimmed straw hat on his head, and his address was abrupt and by no means polished. "What ship," said he, "officer?" "The Volage," replied I, not in love with the person's face, which was bluish-red, with a large nose. "Then," said he, "you bloody dog, come and bow to my bishop," pointing ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman

... bunch of stalks about an inch in diameter) the useless leaves, all arranged for one grasp of the right hand, are stripped off and dropped; the bunch of fruit heads, topping a 6-inch section of clean stalk or straw is handed to a person who may be called the binder. This person in all harvests I have seen was a woman. She binds all the grain three, four, or five persons can pluck; and when there is one binder for every ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks

... stole back upon him. He was tired and lay down for a little on the straw. The key grated in the lock. Conrad started to his feet in terror. What ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger

... sod." Many a man compelled to house four wives (one of them with three sons by a former husband) in such a mansion would have felt excused from entertaining company. But the Snows did not. For a carpet the floor was strewn with straw. The logs of the sides of the room were concealed with sheets. Hollowed turnips provided candelabras, which were stuck around the walls and suspended from the roof. The company were entertained with songs, recitations, conundrums, etc., and ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... when from the boss I pull my pay:— A white and yellow zig-zag cutaway, A sunset-colored vest and purple tie, A shirt for vaudeville and something fly In gunboat shoes and half-hose on the gay. I'll get some green shoe-laces, by the way, And a straw lid to set ...
— The Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum • Wallace Irwin

... Her straw hat and thin white veil lay on a settee between two windows. She picked them up, and began to pull the pins out of the hat. Then she put the hat ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett

... Bellamy, with an ominous smile, "that George Caresfoot has made up his mind to marry you, and that I have made up mine to help him to do so, and that your will, strong as it certainly is, is, as compared with our united wills, what a straw is to a gale. The straw cannot travel against the wind, it must go with it, and you must marry George Caresfoot. You will as certainly come to the altar-rails with him as you will to your death-bed. It is written ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... protested Larry, "except, of course, our straw hats. You don't expect us to knock round ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster

... is well-dressed for the garden party when he wears a suit of white flannel or serge with colored or white linen, a bright tie, straw or panama hat, and oxfords of white or black, or a combination of white and black. Loose jackets of black and white striped flannel may also be worn with white duck trousers, if one is young. Then there are the attractive light ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler

... laughing, and talking to it wildly, and nodding at it. He was taken up a hopeless idiot, and so lived for years and years; clanking the chain, and moaning under the lash, and howling through long nights when the moon peered through the bars of his solitary cell, and he buried his face in the straw. ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray

... horrid—you wouldn't like her a bit, Uncle Cliff; and the way she shakes hands—well, it makes you feel as if you were going to have to support her until she got through with the ordeal—so limp, and lack-a-daisy. She's tall and thin, with straw-colored hair and white eyelashes and cold blue eyes, and she's from Bangor, Maine. I tried to talk with her for a minute while Aunt Lucinda and the house-mother were making arrangements about me, but all I could gather was that she was a Senior, and from the State of Maine. Why do you suppose these ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs

... Italy. Strabo considers this plant to have been the chief food of the Median horses, while Dioscorides assigns it certain medicinal qualities. Clover is still cultivated, in the Elburz region, but horses are now fed almost entirely on straw and barley. ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson

... This was the last straw of insult added to injury. Sugarman was exasperated beyond endurance. He forgot that he had a wider audience than his wife; he lost all control of himself, and cried aloud in a frenzy of rage, "What a pity thou hadst not ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... they won't wait for truth; you may as well reason with the sea, or a railway train, as in such a case with an editor; and, as it makes no difference whether that sea which you desire to argue with is the Mediterranean or the Baltic, so, with that editor and his deafness, it matters not a straw whether he belong to a northern or a southern journal. Here is one evil of journal writing—viz., its overmastering precipitation. A second is, its effect at times in narrowing your publicity. Every journal, or pretty nearly so, is understood to hold (perhaps in its ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... thinks so too. The "Irish wail" has been the last straw. He precedes everyone towards the wings with joyous barks which quite belie his air of long-suffering cynicism. It ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... will arrive to-morrow at four o'clock. I desire you to meet her at the station. Timothy will take the open buggy and drive you over. The telegram says 'light hair, red-checked gingham dress, and straw hat.' That is all I know, but I think it is ...
— Pollyanna • Eleanor H. Porter

... at the straw. "You bet I'll take it. It's for insurance. And you telephone to Masonic Hall and see what's left of the three ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall

... knocked at the door of Corinna's shop, she noticed that the pine bough in the window had been replaced by bowls of growing narcissi. For a moment her stern expression relaxed, and her face, framed in a bonnet of black straw with velvet strings, became soft and anxious. Beneath the veil of white illusion which reached only to the tip of her small sharp nose, her eyes were suddenly touched ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow

... he as I turned away, and, with the word, set his hand upon the gate, and, vaulting nimbly over, came towards me, with a broad-brimmed straw hat in one hand and a long-stemmed wooden pipe in ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol

... domestic interests of the people, to improve their condition, to stock their minds with, useful and appropriate knowledge, to see that they shall be taught what a sense of decent comfort means, that they shall not rest satisfied with a wad of straw for a bed, and a meal of potatoes for food, and that they shall, besides, come to understand the importance of their own position as members of civil society. Had the landlords of Ireland paid attention to these and other matters that ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... man: his hair as light as flax, his eyes as blue as buttermilk, and his shoulders as round as a tub. Every tittle agreed, to the very nosegay in his waistcoat buttonhole. At first, indeed, she thought it had been sweet-briar, and glad to catch at a straw, whispered to herself, It is not he, and I shall marry Jacob still; but on looking again, she saw it was southernwood plain enough, and that of course all was over. The man accosted her with some very nonsensical, but too acceptable compliments. ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More

... finding no lodgment. The water swept him outward then, tearing at his writhing legs. Just as his last clutch failed him his other hand encountered something that was not bare, crumbling earth, and held it desperately. The flood buffeted him and tossed the lower half of his body to and fro like a straw. The muddy water splashed into his face, blinding, choking him. But the object within his grasp remained firm. For a moment he swung there, gasping, with closed eyes. Then he blinked the water from his lids and looked. His left hand was clutching the thick tap root of a greasewood. In an instant ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour

... the wisest course to encourage them in it, always provided that, by so doing, sensible people could derive advantage; that the truly sensible people of this world were the priests, who, without caring a straw for religion for its own sake, made use of it as a cord by which to draw the simpletons after them; that there were many religions in this world, all of which had been turned to excellent account by the priesthood; but that the ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow

... come back long time," said the Indian. "Stable all ready for him—good bed straw, hay to eat. He no come home. Me t'ink ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Big Woods • Laura Lee Hope

... wonder," said Dick. He looked at his watch. It was eleven o'clock. He went out into the hall, picked up a straw hat and walked across the meadow to the thatched cottage on the river-bank. But while he went he was still wondering why in the world Margaret had taken away that harmless little magazine from his father's writing-table. "Pettifer's at the bottom of it," he concluded. "There's ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason

... her opened, and Tom Arundel came into the room. He was fresh from the stable, and smelled of straw. ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper

... out in the straw of one of the bunks, watches their faces in the flickering shadows. He wishes he had the patience to play too. No, perhaps it is better to look on; it would be so silly to be killed in the middle of one of those grand gestures one makes in slamming ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos

... glance that after a few hours' more exposure all the poor little birds would be dead. So I shut up the hens and opened the door of the straw-barn very wide, scattered a quantity of meal and cracked corn in a line on the floor, and crept behind the door to watch. First one bird hopped in and tasted the food; he found it very good and evidently ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues

... With golden visions, and romantic dreams! Down by yon hazel copse, at evening, blaz'd The Gipsy's faggot—there we stood and gaz'd; Gaz'd on her sun-burnt face with silent awe, Her tatter'd mantle, and her hood of straw; Her moving lips, her caldron brimming o'er; The drowsy brood that on her back she bore, Imps, in the barn with mousing owlet bred, From rifled roost at nightly revel fed; Whose dark eyes flash'd thro' locks of blackest shade, When ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers

... of a young apple or peach orchard, it is important that the young trees for at least the first two or three years be given cultivation and some fertilization on lands of lower fertility if a good growth is not being made. A heavy mulch of straw or litter around the ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting • Various

... little incident of my childhood rises up before me. I was ten years old. I had been ill in the Winter and my parents had boarded me out in the country for the Summer holidays; all the love of adventure in me surged up. At the Straw Market a fat, greasy, grinning peasant promised to take me in his cart as far as the little town of Farum, where I was to stay with the schoolmaster. He charged two dalers, and got them. Any sum, of course, was the same to me. I was allowed to ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes

... been implicated in it, and had been condemned to death. Only by the Squire's most strenuous endeavors had this sentence been commuted by the King to life punishment. Geoffrey fled to Scotland, whilst the Squire had been exercising himself on his erring son's behalf. It was the last straw, and George Montfichet disinherited his son. The hard-won Manor of Gamewell must pass from ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick

... Little Breezes whisked Tommy Brown's old straw hat off his head over into the Green Meadows. Of course Tommy ran after it. Just as he stooped to pick it up another little Breeze ran away with it. Then they took turns, first one little Breeze, then another little Breeze running away ...
— Old Mother West Wind • Thornton W. Burgess

... his friend!" said Mr. Lyddell scornfully. "'Tis for himself he is a partizan, I tell you. Nothing else does he care a straw for. 'Tis for nothing but the saving of her fortune that he would have me persecute his sister into this marriage! Aye! he has the face to tell me so! and what more do you think he comes and says to me! Why! that Lionel will be nothing but a burthen for ever! A pretty pass things are come ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... brought to him a cargo of silks and laces out of France. One night he had watched hour after hour, because a gentle and favourable wind was blowing, and La Mere de Misericorde was much overdue; and he was about to lie down upon his heap of straw, seeing that the dawn was whitening the east, and that the schooner would not dare to round Roughley and come to an anchor after daybreak; when he saw a long line of herons flying slowly from Dorren's Island and towards the pools which lie, half choked with reeds, behind what is called ...
— The Secret Rose • W. B. Yeats

... perseverance so exhausted, that the saddle was beyond my ability. I therefore shut the door, and left her to feed on what she could find; while I went and laid myself down among some trusses of straw, that were heaped on ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... natural that having slept too much he should now sleep too little. She prescribed exercise and usefulness. One day she made him wash all the dishes, and prune all the rose-vines, and tie them in readiness for straw jackets when winter should set in, and she made him split wood in the cellar, and after dinner she made him go to the piano and play Irish music for her until the sweat stood out on his forehead. Then she ordered ...
— If You Touch Them They Vanish • Gouverneur Morris

... poor old woman, who had gathered together a dish of beans and wanted to cook them. So she made a fire on her hearth, and that it might burn the quicker, she lighted it with a handful of straw. When she was emptying the beans into the pan, one dropped without her observing it, and lay on the ground beside a straw, and soon afterwards a burning coal from the fire leapt down to the two. Then the straw began and said, "Dear friends, ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... own sowing such the straw I reap! O human race! why dost thou set thy heart Where interdict ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante

... command, has been cruel and inhuman; that in the case of John Dodge, a citizen of these States, which has been particularly stated to this board, he loaded him with irons, threw him into a dungeon, without bedding, without straw, without fire, in the dead of winter and severe climate of Detroit; that, in that state, he wasted him with incessant expectations of death: that when the rigors of his situation had brought him so low, that death ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... and wider. Were all those things really to be bought for her? It seemed impossible; but the girl, who did not seem at all overcome, went off as though it were quite an ordinary matter, and presently she returned with an armful of pretty soft straw hats with wide drooping brims, and tried them one by ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... or five bushels of ripe juicy peaches, mash or bruise them in a tub, and pour them into a barrel, large enough to contain them, and place it in a cool place. At the bottom of the barrel, before putting in the peaches, some clean straw must be placed to prevent the pumice from filling up the spigot. The head of the barrel must be covered. In about three days the Peach Wine is ready for use. Draw it off, from the spigot, and if care and attention have been adopted, a ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various

... riding on his back, sometimes all walking along with him. We gave him luscious twigs if he behaved well and sometimes delicious fruit. Once in a great while as a special treat we would massage his chest with straw and he would squeal with joy and lie on his back as best he could with his fat legs, staring at ...
— Kari the Elephant • Dhan Gopal Mukerji

... battered straw. "I kiss the feet of your grace, and hope your grace's lady"—Manuela quivered—"is not disturbed by my company; for to tell you the truth, sir, I propose to enjoy your own as long as you and she are agreeable. I am used to companionship." ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett

... If I marry an old woman for her money, I have no occasion to be a hypocrite; we both know that our marriage is a mere matter of form. But if I make a young woman my wife because I want her money, and if that young woman happens to be worth a straw, I must deceive her and disgrace myself by shamming love. That, my boy, you may depend upon ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins

... he is; but he hath great longings for the deeds of men, when he hath tidings of battle; for a great warrior and a red-hand hewer he hath been in times past; he loves the Kindred, and deems it ill if he may not fare afield with them; for the thought of dying in the straw is hateful to him." ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris

... same youth who yesterday wrote the "Autobiography of a Fountain Pen" and "The Exhilarations of the Straw-Ride" and the essays on "The Beauties of Nature." It is I who am not the same. I have been changed, renewed, having seen from my stump the face of eternal youth in the freshmen pines marching up the hillside, in the young ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp

... a line of wandering thoughts. Doe's remark, I reflected, was like that of a school-girl who adored her mistress. Perhaps Doe was a girl. After all, I had no certain knowledge that he wasn't a girl with his hair cut short. I pictured him, then, with his hair, paler than straw, reaching down beneath his shoulders, and with his brown eyes and parted lips wearing a feminine appearance. As I produced this strange figure, I began to feel, somewhere in the region of my waist, motions of calf-love ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond

... and George you giv' a basket full of close to las' Summer? You giv' me the linen pants an' blue checked gingham coat and straw hat, an' you giv' Jim thin pants and coat and palm-leaf hat; and don't you mind we went out in a market-wagon to ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland

... whispered musically;—and suddenly stiffened in his chair as the maid came clattering in over the rugless and polished parquet to announce Mr. Ogilvy, followed san facon by that young man, swinging a straw ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers

... Here and there between the bushes were tiny clearings, covered with emerald-green, silky, fine grass, in the midst of which squat funguses peeped out with their comical, variegated pink, lilac, and straw-coloured caps, and golden balls of 'hen-dazzle' blazed in light patches. Here in spring-time the nightingales sang, the blackbirds whistled, the cuckoos called; here in the heat of summer it was always cool—and I loved to make my way into the wilderness and thicket, where I had ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... sinister than in the half-light of midnight. He looked a grave, earnest, sober-living man, with that slight affectation of the Church which one finds more in the rural districts than in cities, for the black clerical straw hat and the clerical drawl seem always to go together. It is strange that the village curate is always more affected in his speech than the popular preacher of the West End, and the country vicar's wife is even more ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux

... was covered with forests, and swamps. The greater part of it was very misty and cold. There were no roads, no bridges, no streets, no houses that you would think deserving of the name. A town was nothing but a collection of straw-covered huts, hidden in a thick wood, with a ditch all round, and a low wall, made of mud, or the trunks of trees placed one upon another. The people planted little or no corn, but lived upon the flesh of their flocks and cattle. They made no coins, ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens

... who passed that he was familiar with their kind. Several gay girls tried to attract his attention, but he turned away, bored. Finally I began to walk away, and then for the first time his face lighted up with interest. I was apparently something new. I wore a straw hat, and a thin coat buttoned tightly about my chest. My thin little face was almost ghastly with pallor, and it made a strange contrast with my full red lips, which were almost scarlet, and my big glowing black eyes. He probably saw that I was poor, dressed as I was ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood

... do haul in all the crops, An' I do bring in vuzz vrom down; An' I do goo vor wood to copse, An' car the corn an' straw ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes

... found scope for exercise where some would not discover the need for it. In native capacity for righteous Anger he abounded. The flame soon kindled, and it was no fire of straw; but it did not master him. Mrs. Gladstone once said to me (1891), that whoever writes his life must remember that he had two sides—one impetuous, impatient, irrestrainable, the other all self-control, able to dismiss all but the great central aim, able to put aside what ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... she chanced to go into the stable. A growl made her start. It was Massacre, whom she had hardly thought of for months. Blind and paralyzed, having reached a great age for an animal, he existed in a straw bed, taken care of by Ludivine, who never forgot him. She took him in her arms, kissed him, and carried him into the house. As big as a barrel, he could scarcely carry himself along on his stiff legs, and he barked like the wooden dogs ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... little tremulous, but immaculate and jaunty in his white flannels and straw hat, he at last made his way downstairs. To his great relief he found the sitting room empty, as he would have willingly deferred his formal acknowledgments to his hostess later. A single glance at the interior determined him not to linger, and he slipped quietly into the open air and sunshine. ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... to the window, which commanded a view of the veranda. Miss Macy had dropped into the vacant chair, with her little feet stretched out before her, her cheeks burning with heat and fire, her eyes partly closed, her straw hat hanging by a ribbon round her neck, her brown hair clinging to her ears and forehead in damp tendrils, and an enormous palm-leaf fan in each hand violently playing upon this charming ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte

... over your young lady, or she will get some such name. I speak to you like a friend, Clare, when I tell you it's my opinion that girl of yours will get herself into some more mischief yet before she's safely married. Not that I care one straw for Mr. Preston's feelings. I don't even know if he's got feelings or not; but I know what is becoming in a young woman, and jilting is not. And now you may both go away, and send Bradley to me, for I'm tired, and want to have a ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... same the man in the chimney-corner took up the poker and began stirring the fire as if doing it thoroughly were the one aim of his existence, and a second time the shepherd said, "Walk in!" In a moment another man stood upon the straw-woven door-mat. ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various

... spoken, its arch bending above at a height of not less than sixty or seventy feet from the ground. Into this great, precipice-backed cavity poured the fierce light of the setting sun, turning it and all within it, even the large straw hut in the background, to the deep hue of blood. Seeing the wonderful effect of the sunset in that dark and forbidding place, it occurred to me at once that the old wizard must have chosen this moment to receive us because ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard

... news, A great want of shoes; Eat lean meat, or choose; A church without pews. Our horses astray, No straw, oats, or hay; December in May, Our boys run away, All servants ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... cats-tail, Walker and others, cats-tail, means but the same thing, though not a cat's tail. Johnson's "kingspear, Jews-ear, lady-mantle, and lady-bedstraw," are no more proper, than Webster's "bear's-wort, lion's foot, lady's mantle, and lady's bed-straw." All ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... his senatorial district—the only office he had occupied since the war. His activity in securing its call, his striking presence, as he walked to his seat, clad in his long summer duster, carrying his brown straw hat and his unlighted cigar, as well as his tireless labors in that body, made him the center of interest. General Toombs was chairman of the committee on legislation and chairman of the final committee on revision. This body was made up of twenty-six ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall



Words linked to "Straw" :   straw foxglove, bestrew, straw vote, last straw, straw mushroom, plant fibre, plant material, yellowness, distribute, spread, cushioning, straw-colored, bran, pale yellow, straw man, cover, shuck, litter, padding, plant substance, plant fiber, tubing, straw-coloured



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