a. Also 8–9 strawey. [f. STRAW sb.1 + -Y.]
1. Consisting of, of the nature of, full of straw.
1552. Huloet, Strawye, or of strawe, stramineus.
1557. Tottel’s Misc. (Arb.), 268. Some birdes can eate the strawie corne, And flee the lime the fowlers set.
1597. Gerarde, Herbal, I. vii. 8. A strawie stalke.
1664. Boyle, Exper. Colours, iii. 34. The Lateral and Strawy parts [of ripe corn].
1786. Abercrombie, Gard. Assist., 19. Having some strawey mulchy dung lay it on the ground over the roots.
1805. R. W. Dickson, Pract. Agric., II. 604. The strawy litter from the fold-yard.
1854. Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc., XV. I. 15. The hay is coarse and strawy.
1881. Eleanor A. Ormerod, Man. Injur. Insects, 148. Any long strawy lumps left on the surface will shelter the fly.
2. Made with straw; filled, thatched or strewed with straw.
1568. T. Howell, Arb. Amitie (1879), 65. The yoked Oxe doth smell his strawie stall.
a. 1593. Marlowe, Ovid’s Elegies, II. ix. 18. Rome if her strength the huge world had not fild, With strawie cabins now her courts should build.
1610. G. Fletcher, Christ’s Vict., I. lxxxii. The strawy tent, Whear gold, to make their Prince a crowne, they all present.
1736. W. Thompson, Nativity, 28. The strawy Shed, Where Mary, Queen of Heaven, in humbless Lay.
1859. Capern, Ballads & Songs, 110. Swaddled in a strawy bed, Lies the babe of Bethlehem.
1860. Dickens, Uncomm. Trav., xii. I departed from Dullborough in the strawy arms of Timpson’s Blue-Eyed Maid [a coach].
3. Resembling straw in texture, color, etc.
1668. Wilkins, Real Char., 84. A yellowish flower, of a dry strawy consistence.
1839. Ure, Dict. Arts, 93. The water … acquires a yellowish tinge, and a strawy smell.
1879. ‘Aliph Cheem’ (Yeldham), Lays of Ind (ed. 6), 105. You’ll see him turn a strawy hue.
4. fig. Light, empty or worthless as straw.
1583. Fulke, Def., Answ. Pref. 13. Luther … sayth, the epistle of Iames in comparison of these, is strawye, or like straw.
1606. Shaks., Tr. & Cr., V. v. 24 (Qo.). And there the strawy Greekes ripe for his edge Fall downe before him, like a mowers swath.
1641. Milton, Animadv., 32. The iron, the brasse, and the clay of those muddy and strawy ages that follow.
1662. J. Chandler, Van Helmont’s Oriat., 76. Therefore by a strawie argument, the Maxim of the Schooles falls to the ground.
