"jackstraw" meaning in English

{
  "derived": [
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "care a jackstraw"
    }
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "jackstraws",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
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      "args": {},
      "expansion": "jackstraw (plural jackstraws)",
      "name": "en-noun"
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "29 4 63 4",
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          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
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            "Entry maintenance"
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        {
          "ref": "1856, Matthew C. Perry, Francis L. Hawks, chapter 23, in Narrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron to the China Seas and Japan, volume 1, Washington: A.O.P. Nicholson, page 466",
          "text": "It was a cheerful reminder of one’s childhood, and another bond of sympathy between the various branches of the human race, however remotely separated from each other, to find the little shaven-pated lads playing ball in the streets of Hakodadi, or jackstraws within the domestic circle at home.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1907, John Millington Synge, The Playboy of the Western World, act 3",
          "text": "If I wasn’t a good Christian, it’s on my naked knees I’d be saying my prayers and paters to every jackstraw you have roofing your head, and every stony pebble is paving the laneway to your door.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1912, Mary Johnston, chapter 5, in Cease Firing",
          "text": "It was late February before the expedition entered the Coldwater, early March before it approached the Tallahatchie. Here it encountered afresh felled trees like endless bundles of jackstraws, thrown vigorously, crossed under water at every imaginable angle.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1983, Jack Vance, chapter 24, in Lyonesse",
          "text": "The landlord strode on jackstraw legs across the room.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "One of the pieces used for the game called jackstraws or pick-up sticks."
      ],
      "id": "en-jackstraw-en-noun-TvaAbE0~",
      "links": [
        [
          "jackstraws",
          "jackstraws"
        ],
        [
          "pick-up sticks",
          "pick-up sticks"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(usually in the plural) One of the pieces used for the game called jackstraws or pick-up sticks."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "_dis1": "100 0",
          "sense": "game piece",
          "word": "spillikin"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "plural-normally"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1959, Richard Rovere, “What He Was and What He Did-1”, in Senator Joe McCarthy, Cleveland: Meridian, published 1963, page 4",
          "text": "At the start of 1950, he was a jackstraw in Washington. Then he discovered Communism—almost by inadvertence, as Columbus discovered America, as James Marshall discovered California gold. By the spring of the year, he was a towering figure […]",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An insignificant person."
      ],
      "id": "en-jackstraw-en-noun-pi5JTahG",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(dated) An insignificant person."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "dated"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "pick-up sticks"
  ],
  "word": "jackstraw"
}

{
  "head_templates": [
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      "args": {
        "1": "-"
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      "expansion": "jackstraw (not comparable)",
      "name": "en-adj"
    }
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1906 October, Henry Milner Rideout, “Captain Christy”, in The Atlantic Monthly, volume 98, number 4, page 452",
          "text": "Along the grass-grown wharves,—silver-gray piles which crumbled at the ends into a jackstraw heap of rotting logs,—there was no human stir.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1990, Stephen King, “The Library Policeman”, in Four past Midnight",
          "text": "He threw himself down on the far side and saw a white, hellishly misshapen creature pulling itself from beneath a jackstraw tumble of atlases and travel volumes.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Resembling a bundle of jackstraws that has been strewn on a surface."
      ],
      "id": "en-jackstraw-en-adj-esNccwOH",
      "links": [
        [
          "strewn",
          "strew"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "not-comparable"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "7 80 13 0",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "People",
          "orig": "en:People",
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            "Human",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
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          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1754, Samuel Richardson, The History of Sir Charles Grandison, London, Volume 7, Letter 11, p. 57",
          "text": "[…] if you are my daughter, you shall wear these for your father’s sake!—How now, madam! Refuse me! I command you on your obedience to accept of this—I will not be a Jack-straw father",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Of no substance or worth."
      ],
      "id": "en-jackstraw-en-adj-8wx1Cnl9",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(obsolete, of a person) Of no substance or worth."
      ],
      "raw_tags": [
        "of a person"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "not-comparable",
        "obsolete"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "pick-up sticks"
  ],
  "word": "jackstraw"
}

{
  "categories": [
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    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
    "English lemmas",
    "English nouns",
    "English uncomparable adjectives",
    "en:People"
  ],
  "derived": [
    {
      "word": "care a jackstraw"
    }
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "jackstraws",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "jackstraw (plural jackstraws)",
      "name": "en-noun"
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1856, Matthew C. Perry, Francis L. Hawks, chapter 23, in Narrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron to the China Seas and Japan, volume 1, Washington: A.O.P. Nicholson, page 466",
          "text": "It was a cheerful reminder of one’s childhood, and another bond of sympathy between the various branches of the human race, however remotely separated from each other, to find the little shaven-pated lads playing ball in the streets of Hakodadi, or jackstraws within the domestic circle at home.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1907, John Millington Synge, The Playboy of the Western World, act 3",
          "text": "If I wasn’t a good Christian, it’s on my naked knees I’d be saying my prayers and paters to every jackstraw you have roofing your head, and every stony pebble is paving the laneway to your door.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1912, Mary Johnston, chapter 5, in Cease Firing",
          "text": "It was late February before the expedition entered the Coldwater, early March before it approached the Tallahatchie. Here it encountered afresh felled trees like endless bundles of jackstraws, thrown vigorously, crossed under water at every imaginable angle.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1983, Jack Vance, chapter 24, in Lyonesse",
          "text": "The landlord strode on jackstraw legs across the room.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "One of the pieces used for the game called jackstraws or pick-up sticks."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "jackstraws",
          "jackstraws"
        ],
        [
          "pick-up sticks",
          "pick-up sticks"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(usually in the plural) One of the pieces used for the game called jackstraws or pick-up sticks."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "plural-normally"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English dated terms",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1959, Richard Rovere, “What He Was and What He Did-1”, in Senator Joe McCarthy, Cleveland: Meridian, published 1963, page 4",
          "text": "At the start of 1950, he was a jackstraw in Washington. Then he discovered Communism—almost by inadvertence, as Columbus discovered America, as James Marshall discovered California gold. By the spring of the year, he was a towering figure […]",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An insignificant person."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(dated) An insignificant person."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "dated"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "sense": "game piece",
      "word": "spillikin"
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "pick-up sticks"
  ],
  "word": "jackstraw"
}

{
  "categories": [
    "English adjectives",
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
    "English lemmas",
    "English nouns",
    "English uncomparable adjectives",
    "en:People"
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  "head_templates": [
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      "expansion": "jackstraw (not comparable)",
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1906 October, Henry Milner Rideout, “Captain Christy”, in The Atlantic Monthly, volume 98, number 4, page 452",
          "text": "Along the grass-grown wharves,—silver-gray piles which crumbled at the ends into a jackstraw heap of rotting logs,—there was no human stir.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1990, Stephen King, “The Library Policeman”, in Four past Midnight",
          "text": "He threw himself down on the far side and saw a white, hellishly misshapen creature pulling itself from beneath a jackstraw tumble of atlases and travel volumes.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Resembling a bundle of jackstraws that has been strewn on a surface."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "strewn",
          "strew"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "not-comparable"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with obsolete senses",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1754, Samuel Richardson, The History of Sir Charles Grandison, London, Volume 7, Letter 11, p. 57",
          "text": "[…] if you are my daughter, you shall wear these for your father’s sake!—How now, madam! Refuse me! I command you on your obedience to accept of this—I will not be a Jack-straw father",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Of no substance or worth."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(obsolete, of a person) Of no substance or worth."
      ],
      "raw_tags": [
        "of a person"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "not-comparable",
        "obsolete"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "pick-up sticks"
  ],
  "word": "jackstraw"
}