jackstraw

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A game played with a pile of straws or thin sticks, with the players attempting in turn to remove a single stick without disturbing the others.
2. n. One of the straws or sticks used in this game.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A figure or effigy of a man made of straw; hence, a man without any substance or means; a dependent. Also jack of straw.
2. n. One of a set of straws or strips of ivory, wood, bone, or the like, used in a children's game. The jack straws are thrown confusedly together on a table, and are to be gathered up singly by the hand, sometimes with the aid of a hooked Instrument, without joggling or disturbing the rest of the pile.
3. n. plural The game thus played.
4. n. [capitalized] In English history, a name assumed by rick-burners and destroyers of machines during the early years of the nineteenth century.
5. n. The whitethroat, Sylvia cinerea, also called winnell-straw, from the straw used in making its nest. See strawsmall.
6. n. The blackcap, Sylvia atricapilla.
7. n. The narrow-leafed plantain, Plantago lanceolata. Also called rib-grass and English plantain.

Wiktionary

1. n. usually plural One of the pieces used for the game variously called jackstraws or pick-up-sticks.
2. n. obsolete An insignificant person.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. An effigy stuffed with straw; a scarecrow; hence, a man without property or influence.
2. n. One of a set of straws of strips of ivory, bone, wood, etc., for playing a child's game, the jackstraws being thrown confusedly together on a table, to be gathered up singly by a hooked instrument, without touching or disturbing the rest of the pile. See Spilikin. A modern variation, called pick-up-sticks (U.S. 1940+), is played with thin wooden sticks of different colors, each color having different values for scoring; the sticks are dislodged from the pile with the hand or with one of the sticks.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a thin strip of wood used in playing the game of jackstraws