资料来源 : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Straw \Straw\, n. [OE. straw, stre, stree, AS. stre['a]w, from
   the root of E. strew; akin to OFries. str[=e], D. stroo, G.
   stroh, OHG. str[=o], Icel. str[=a], Dan. straa, Sw. str[*a].
   [root]166. See {Strew}.]
   1. A stalk or stem of certain species of grain, pulse, etc.,
      especially of wheat, rye, oats, barley, more rarely of
      buckwheat, beans, and pease.

   2. The gathered and thrashed stalks of certain species of
      grain, etc.; as, a bundle, or a load, of rye straw.

   3. Anything proverbially worthless; the least possible thing;
      a mere trifle.

            I set not a straw by thy dreamings.   --Chaucer.

   Note: Straw is often used in the formation of self-explaining
         compounds; as, straw-built, straw-crowned,
         straw-roofed, straw-stuffed, and the like.

   {Man of straw}, an effigy formed by stuffing the garments of
      a man with straw; hence, a fictitious person; an
      irresponsible person; a puppet.



   2. Especially: An adult male person; a grown-up male person,
      as distinguished from a woman or a child.

            When I became a man, I put away childish things. --I
                                                  Cor. xiii. 11.

            Ceneus, a woman once, and once a man. --Dryden.

   3. The human race; mankind.

            And God said, Let us make man in our image, after
            our likeness, and let them have dominion. --Gen. i.
                                                  26.

            The proper study of mankind is man.   --Pope.

   4. The male portion of the human race.

            Woman has, in general, much stronger propensity than
            man to the discharge of parental duties. --Cowper.

   5. One possessing in a high degree the distinctive qualities
      of manhood; one having manly excellence of any kind.
      --Shak.

            This was the noblest Roman of them all . . . the
            elements So mixed in him that Nature might stand up
            And say to all the world ``This was a man!'' --Shak.

   6. An adult male servant; also, a vassal; a subject.

            Like master, like man.                --Old Proverb.

            The vassal, or tenant, kneeling, ungirt, uncovered,
            and holding up his hands between those of his lord,
            professed that he did become his man from that day
            forth, of life, limb, and earthly honor.
                                                  --Blackstone.

   7. A term of familiar address often implying on the part of
      the speaker some degree of authority, impatience, or
      haste; as, Come, man, we 've no time to lose!

   8. A married man; a husband; -- correlative to wife.

            I pronounce that they are man and wife. --Book of
                                                  Com. Prayer.

            every wife ought to answer for her man. --Addison.

   9. One, or any one, indefinitely; -- a modified survival of
      the Saxon use of man, or mon, as an indefinite pronoun.

            A man can not make him laugh.         --Shak.

            A man would expect to find some antiquities; but all
            they have to show of this nature is an old rostrum
            of a Roman ship.                      --Addison.

   10. One of the piece with which certain games, as chess or
       draughts, are played.

   Note: Man is often used as a prefix in composition, or as a
         separate adjective, its sense being usually
         self-explaining; as, man child, man eater or maneater,
         man-eating, man hater or manhater, man-hating,
         manhunter, man-hunting, mankiller, man-killing, man
         midwife, man pleaser, man servant, man-shaped,
         manslayer, manstealer, man-stealing, manthief, man
         worship, etc. Man is also used as a suffix to denote a
         person of the male sex having a business which pertains
         to the thing spoken of in the qualifying part of the
         compound; ashman, butterman, laundryman, lumberman,
         milkman, fireman, showman, waterman, woodman. Where the
         combination is not familiar, or where some specific
         meaning of the compound is to be avoided, man is used
         as a separate substantive in the foregoing sense; as,
         apple man, cloth man, coal man, hardware man, wood man
         (as distinguished from woodman).

   {Man ape} (Zo["o]l.), a anthropoid ape, as the gorilla.

   {Man at arms}, a designation of the fourteenth and fifteenth
      centuries for a soldier fully armed.

   {Man engine}, a mechanical lift for raising or lowering
      people through considerable distances; specifically
      (Mining), a contrivance by which miners ascend or descend
      in a shaft. It consists of a series of landings in the
      shaft and an equal number of shelves on a vertical rod
      which has an up and down motion equal to the distance
      between the successive landings. A man steps from a
      landing to a shelf and is lifted or lowered to the next
      landing, upon which he them steps, and so on, traveling by
      successive stages.

   {Man Friday}, a person wholly subservient to the will of
      another, like Robinson Crusoe's servant Friday.

   {Man of straw}, a puppet; one who is controlled by others;
      also, one who is not responsible pecuniarily.

   {Man-of-the earth} (Bot.), a twining plant ({Ipom[oe]a
      pandurata}) with leaves and flowers much like those of the
      morning-glory, but having an immense tuberous farinaceous
      root.

   {Man of war}.
       (a) A warrior; a soldier. --Shak.
       (b) (Naut.) See in the Vocabulary.

   {To be one's own man}, to have command of one's self; not to
      be subject to another.