Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a nickname for one who has light blonde hair.

1908

‘O. Henry’ ‘A Tempered Wind’ in Gentle Grafter (1915) 160: By and by Straw-top comes down again.

1. (US) a person who is second-in-command, assistant to the boss.

1882		Larned Chronoscope (KS) 17 Feb. 3/1: Mr Booze, ‘straw bos’ of the street gang was very badly bruised.
1890		Halstead Trib. (KS) 28 Nov. 2/2: He had two bosses: one the real boss who watched him hard, and the other a ‘straw boss’ who [...] worked him hard, also.
1906		J.W. Carr ‘Words from Northwest Arkansas’ in DN III:ii 159: straw boss, n. Assistant foreman. ‘The foreman’s away. You can speak with the straw boss.’.
1913		H.A. Franck Zone Policeman 88 225: There are no contractor’s Irish straw-bosses to keep them on the move.
1920–23		in J.M. Hunter Trail Drivers of Texas (1963) I 331: In a cattle outfit the owner is called the ‘big boss,’ [...] his first lieutenant is called the ‘straw boss’.
1931		O. Strange Law O’ The Lariat 28: I’m told yu been actin’ straw-boss since Stevens passed out.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 36: The prison hospital, where they had nice clean beds, good chow, and no straw bosses.
1955		B. Schulberg On the Waterfront (1964) 198: A gathering of the minor politicians and straw bosses of Bohegan.
1969		‘Iceberg Slim’ Mama Black Widow 230: The straw boss was winking at me.
1971		D. Wells Night People 102: Some of the obstacles a straw may meet are jealousy, stubborness, revenge and too much ignorant oil.
1976		R. Price Blood Brothers 18: I give him two years he’ll be straw boss ’cause he is one smart bastard.
1988		D. Woodrell Muscle for the Wing 73: A large, flat-topped man, with [...] the general expression of a natural-born straw boss.

2. (US tramp) the foreman of a work crew.

1927		W. Edge Main Stem 51: We went to the foreman and asked him to fire us [...] But the ‘goddam, whippersnapper straw boss’, as Slim called him, would not give us our time.
1935		Z.N. Hurston Mules and Men (1995) 69: Grab your dinner-bucket and hit the grit. Don’t keep the straw-boss waiting.
1945		F.H. Hubbard Railroad Avenue 363: Straw Boss – Foreman of a small gang or acting as foreman.
1959		W. Brown Teen-Age Mafia 74: The straw boss made a point of looking at your hand, and then he passed you over.
1967		(con. 1920s) J. Thompson South of Heaven (1994) 69: The strawbosses rode with the truck-drivers.
1970		E. Thompson Garden of Sand (1981) 187: It was the straw boss, though, who decided who worked and who did not.
1981		McKee & Chisenhall Beale Black & Blue 6: [B]lack men under the watchful eyes of white straw bosses had wielded the iron wrecking balls that tore down the framework of Beale.
1991		O.D. Brooks Legs 13: I’d sit with him [...] listening to his tales about jungles, yard bulls, and straw bosses in camps where he’d worked.

1. a barber.

1821		W.T. Moncrieff Tom and Jerry I v: Now you can make an assignation with some of our dashing straw-chippers and nob-thatchers in Burlington Arcade.
1822		Tom and Jerry; A Musical Extravaganza I i: Quizzing the straw-chippers in Burlington Arcade.

2. a straw bonnet maker.

1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.

(Anglo-Irish) a debtor’s prison.

1821

‘A Real Paddy’ Real Life in Ireland 186: When the hour of nine hath stricken, / Up the nine stairs slow we crawl; / Crowds of Pads the alleys thicken, / That convey them to straw hall. [Ibid.] 215 : He is an odd fellow, and full of humour, frequently giving balls to the natives of Straw Hall.

1. a Billingsgate fish-wife.

1699

N. Ward London Spy VI 131: A parcel of Trugmoldies, Straw-Hats and Flat-Caps, selling Socks and Furmity [etc.].

2. (Aus., also straw-hatter) a dandy, a fashionable person; thus straw hat push, the social élite.

1900–10		Stephens & O’Brien Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.] 37: In fact, the quasi-rough or ‘respectable larrikin’ youths, who are the main army of ‘barrackers’ at sports and street corners, are often spoken and written of as the ‘straw-hat push.’.
1901		W.S. Walker In the Blood 103: There is nobody else but the ‘straw-hat push’ and their girls.
1905		Sun. Times (Perth) 22 Oct. 4/8: I don’t know why yous gets your body in a not about the straw hat push. They’ve got, quit as much rite to prat their frames in if they like.
1917		Truth (Sydney) 15 Apr. 9/4: Aspiring flappers and would-be straw-hatters [...] are a type I used to bump whilst in the police [AND].
1930		H. Redcliffe Yellow Cygnet 20: ‘There ain’t much of the “straw ’at”’- a slang phrase for dandy – ‘about that nipper.’ [AND].

(US) a derog. term for an immigrant, lit. one with straw in their hair, i.e. a peasant.

1960

C. Cooper Jr Scene (1996) 72: G’wan back to the old country, you strawhead!

(US) a home for destitute seamen.

1898

(con. 1875) F.T. Bullen Cruise of the ‘Cachalot’ 283: Of course a man may go to the ‘straw house,’ or, as it is grandiloquently termed, the ‘destitute seaman’s asylum,’ where for a season he will be fed [...] and sheltered from the weather.

a night-shelter or casual ward, occupied by the impoverished street-dwellers.

1850		Morn. Chron. (London) 22 Jan. 5/6: There’s far more good people in the straw-yards than the casuals — the dodgers is less frequent there, considering the numbers.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor III 404/1: I’ve got tickets for the ‘straw-yards,’ or the ‘leather-houses,’ as some call them.

a farm-worker, esp. a thresher.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: bang straw. A nick name for a thresher, but applied to all the servants of a farmer.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

to show signs of sleep; esp. as one’s eyes draw straw(s).

1738		Swift Polite Conversation 94: Indeed my Eyes draw Straws (She’s almost asleep).
1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn) n.p.: His eyes draw straw; his eyes are almost shut, or he is almost asleep: one eye draws straw, and t’other serves the thatcher.
1796		‘Peter Pindar’ ‘Orson and Ellen’ Canto V in Works V (1812) 78: Their eyelids did not once pick straws, / And wink and sink away; / No, no, they were as brisk as bees.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1788].
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

1. pregnant, in labour, giving birth.

1641		R. Brome Jovial Crew Act II: Now she is in the straw, it seems [...] The Bratling’s born; the Doxey’s in the Strummel, Laid by an Autum Mort of their own Crew, That served for Mid-wife.
1674		Hogan-Moganides 41: In what Condition in the Straw, And through her Labour not so lusty To tug at Bottle, being thirsty, Cryes out ho, Gossips [...] reach me here some Brandy.
1700		N. Ward The Rambling Rakes 3: I was as Squeamish as Newly Marrried Woman, and lap’d more Mutton-Broth, than a Coutry Dame in the Straw does Oatmeal-Caudle.
1709		‘Phoebe Crackenthorpe’ Female Tatler (1992) (29) 71: The virtuous Imoinda being now down in the straw with her fourth and last child without any father for it.
1726		Cunicularii in 18C Erotica V n.p.: The Lady in the Straw.
1748		Spy on Mother Midnight I 17: We all sat down [...] and entered a merry Conversation to keep the Woman in straw from Rest.
1784		Rambler’s Mag. Jan. 39/2: The protruberance of one of the vis-a-vis Westons is of late so much encreated as to effect the springs of the carriage [...] it is feared that they will not be able to hold it up rill the demi-mistress of the equipage is in the straw.
1786		J. Burgoyne Heiress I i: mrs blandish: This [letter] You take care to send to all the lying-in ladies? prompt: At their doors, Madam, before the first load of straw [...] (Reading his memorandum, as he goes out.) Ladies in the straw – Ministers, etc. – Old Maids, Cats, Sparrows, never had a better list.
1795		J. O’Keeffe Life’s Vagaries 49: The bishop’s lady was the good woman in the straw.
1816		M. Lewis 8 Jan. in Journal of a West India Proprietor (1834) 82: Two women are in the straw already.
1829		‘Hackney Coachman’ in C. Hindley James Catnach (1878) 198: ’Twere crammed full of ladies, who were all in the straw.
1833		‘Mutton’ in Out-and-Outer in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) IV 127: According to law, got into the straw, / And brought her spouse a son and heir.
1833		Satirist (London) 28 Apr. 557/1: ‘She’s confined also, said D’Orsay. ‘Gad bless me!’ ejaculated Wombwell, ‘do you mean to say that both ladies are in the — , eh?’ ‘In the hay, no; nor in the straw; both are confined with the influenza’.
1840		T. Hood ‘Miss Kilmansegg and Her Precious Leg’ in Poems (1846) I 113: Although, by the vulgar popular saw, / All mothers are said to be ‘in the straw,’ / Some children are born in clover.
1859		H. Kingsley Recollections of G. Hamlyn (1891) 305: Having had his wife in the straw every thirteen months regularly for the last fifteen years, he prepared to assist.
1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. 229: Married ladies are said to be ‘in the straw’ at their accouchements. The phrase is a coarse allusion to farm-yard animals in a similar condition.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1905		Sporting Times 1 Apr. 3/2: sal.: ‘The vicar have called with a subscription list’ gub.: ‘What for? A new organ, or is the sexton’s young wife in the straw again?’.
1938		(con. 1900s) J.B. Booth Sporting Times 251: His poor little missis about to be in the straw again.

2. having sexual intercourse.

1979

Spoonie G ‘Spoonin Rap’ 🎵 And then I got in the straw, we start to do it to the beat.

(US) a driving force, a motivational factor.

2005

J. Buskey Tinged Valor 31: Officer Horan assumed the duty of coming in every night and getting things started [...] Officer Horan was the straw that stirred the drink in Southzone.

of a woman, to seek a new husband.

1923

J. Manchon Le Slang.

a countryman, a peasant.

1821		J. Clare Village Minstrel I 36: The bumptious serjeant struts before his men, / And ‘clear the road, young whopstraws!’ will he say.
1835		Court Jrnl 21 Mar. 188/2: The Haverford-Westrians have discovered a new source of amusement for the whopstraws.
1843		Morn. Chron. (London) 25 Nov. 3/5: One of the farmers took off his top-boots, which were hoisted on a pole and paraded in triumph, whilst they allowed the ‘Johnny Whop-straw’ [...] to walk in his stockings.
1845		R.S. Surtees Hillingdon Hall I 74: Wopstraw was a big, broad-shouldered, broad-faced, sensible, respectable man; but slow in his judgment, and cautious in his utterance.
1859		London Eve. Standard 2 June 6/5: A volunteer (I mean a sailor, not a Johnny Wapstraw) leaves his monkey-jacket out of the bag, which the [...] mate [...] puts in the ‘scran-bag’.
1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn).
1868		Salisbury & Winchester Jrnl 9 May 7/1: On the backs of the rich was the fleece that came from the farm of Johnny Whoptrsaw [Laughter].
1876		J. Greenwood Low-Life Deeps 309: They [card sharpers] may hang about the outside of the fair and try to catch a Johnny Wopstraw or two, but they never try it on the lads of our school.
1888		N. Devon Jrnl 7 June 2/3: Johnny Whopstraw was inclined to be neighbourly with Charity, seeing that he lived next door.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 95: Whopstraw, a countryman.
1896		G.F. Northall Warwickshire Word-Book 259: Whopstraw. A country clown. Often [...] as ‘Johnny Whopstraw.’ ‘Whipstraw’ is another term.