Also 5 strowe. [f. STRAW sb.1]
1. trans. To supply with straw.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 480/2. Strowyn, or lyteryn, stramino.
c. 1481. Caxton, Dialogues, ix. 49. Gyue heye to the hors, And strawe them well. [Fr. et les estraines bien.] Ibid. (1483), Gold. Leg., 44/1. And brought hym in and strowed his cameles and gaf them chaff and heye.
2. intr. (slang.) See quot.
1851. Mayhew, Lond. Labour, I. 215. The practice of what is called ‘strawing,’ or selling straws in the street, and giving away with them something … forbidden to be sold,—as indecent papers [etc.].
Hence Strawed ppl. a.; Strawing vbl. sb.
1851. Mayhew, Lond. Labour, I. 239. I have already alluded to ‘strawing.’
1887. Hissey, Holiday on Road, 103. Farmsteads … with … their deeply strawed yards.
