Now rare. The breadth of a straw. Formerly often referred to as a typically small distance.
α. 1577. Grange, Golden Aphrod., etc. S iv. Yet I truste yee will accepte of me for my well meanyng, who am not therein a strawe bredth incomparable to Cleanthes.
1596. Harington, Anal. Metam. Aiax, L iiij. This skrew must … appeare through the planke not aboue a straw-breadth on the right hand.
1676. Mace, Musick’s Mon., 60. Leaving about a Straw-bredth or two betwixt Paper and Paper.
1722. Tickell, Kensington Gard., 310. More tall he seems to rise, And struts a straw-breadth nearer to the skies.
1730. T. Boston, Mem., vii. (1899), 153. There was a spit … sticking in the wall of the house, with the small end of it outmost. I rushed inadvertently my face on it, and the wound I got was about a straw-breadth beneath the eye.
1816. Scott, Old Mort., xxxiii. Awaiting till the sword destined to slay him crept out of the scabbard gradually, and as it were by straw-breadths.
β. 1577. trans. Bullinger’s Decades, IV. vii. (1592), 713. Christians … do not … go a strawes bredth from the diuine scriptures.
