Definitions

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

  • noun Plural form of straw.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • More grasping at straws from the losing campaign, I guess.

    Clinton campaign: Obama ran an 'aggressive' WV race 2008

  • Grasping at straws is the phrase that comes to mind.

    Franken Erases Coleman’s Lead, for Now - The Caucus Blog - NYTimes.com 2008

  • Rehder Lance Mangina was known to take coffee straws from the university food court for his own personal fifi collection.

    COMMENTS OF THE WEEK 2007

  • The briefest runs became asphyxiating chokes as I struggled to inhale enough oxygen through the painfully thin straws of my nostrils.

    You Are In A Twisty Little Ferrett Mind, All Alike 2005

  • Reader comment: Tyler Campbell says: Another way to save straws is to cut them so they fit under the cap while still attached.

    Boing Boing: July 17, 2005 - July 23, 2005 Archives 2005

  • I had much difficulty to forbear laughing at this unmeaning scheme; but saw, to my great surprise, not the least change of countenance in any other person: and, since we came home, Mrs. Selwyn has informed me, that to draw straws is a fashion of betting by no means uncommon.

    Evelina: or, The History of a Young Lady's Entrance Into the World 1778

  • Seizing a couple of other straws from the wind – the plot to crown Smuggo as Emperor of Europe and a meeting being convened by Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling in London shortly, the invitations to which have caused a lot of petulant whining from the uninvited - a case is made as to why something we believed to have been taken off even the back burner is about to be brought back to the table and flambéd before our very eyes.

    Archive 2008-01-13 2008

  • Seizing a couple of other straws from the wind – the plot to crown Smuggo as Emperor of Europe and a meeting being convened by Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling in London shortly, the invitations to which have caused a lot of petulant whining from the uninvited - a case is made as to why something we believed to have been taken off even the back burner is about to be brought back to the table and flambéd before our very eyes.

    €uro: A Rabbit in the Hat? 2008

  • The New York Times, who had not been happy at so much European support for the United States in Iraq, preferring to think of Bush as someone who isolated the country, is clutching at what might be described as straws:

    Archive 2007-10-01 Richard 2007

  • The New York Times, who had not been happy at so much European support for the United States in Iraq, preferring to think of Bush as someone who isolated the country, is clutching at what might be described as straws:

    Elections, elections Helen 2007

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