Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A thin mattress filled with straw or sawdust.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A solid bed of masonry, as for the floor of an oven or furnace; by extension, any pedestal or base-block built of masonry if of considerable dimensions.
  • noun Originally, a straw bed; in modern upholstery, an under-mattress.
  • noun A garment trimmed, with plaited straw sewed on like galloon or passement: women's dresses were so ornamented about 1785.
  • noun A buffoon whose costume was generally striped like the ticking or stuff of which the covering of a mattress is made, whence the name: a character assumed by masqueraders.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun An under bed or mattress of straw.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun chiefly UK An under bed or mattress of straw.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun mattress consisting of a thin pad filled with straw or sawdust

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, from Old French, from paille, straw, from Late Latin palea, from Latin, chaff.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

French, from paille straw.

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Examples

Comments

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  • The shepherd's in distress, alas!
    By day he's still lacking a lass
    But he'll not eschew
    A flirtatious ewe
    To warm his lonely paillasse.

    January 22, 2015