What's the difference between straw and stray?

Straw


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To spread or scatter. See Strew, and Strow.
  • (n.) A stalk or stem of certain species of grain, pulse, etc., especially of wheat, rye, oats, barley, more rarely of buckwheat, beans, and pease.
  • (n.) The gathered and thrashed stalks of certain species of grain, etc.; as, a bundle, or a load, of rye straw.
  • (n.) Anything proverbially worthless; the least possible thing; a mere trifle.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The patient, a 12 year-old boy, showed a soft white yellowish mycotic excrescence with clear borders which had followed the introduction of a small piece of straw into the cornea.
  • (2) The lambs of the second group were given 1200-1500 g of concentrate pellets and 300 g chopped wheat straw, and those of the third group were given 800 and 1050 g each of concentrate pellets, and 540 g and 720 g of pellets of whole maize plant containing 40 per cent.
  • (3) Jack Straw, foreign secretary at the time of the Iraq war, took a less dramatic view.
  • (4) David Blunkett, not Straw, was the home secretary at the time the decision was taken to allow Poles and others immediate access to the British labour market.
  • (5) Pictures of the Social Network star emerged on Twitter and Instagram on Wednesday, showing Garfield in full costume for Punchdrunk's current show, The Drowned Man , chewing seductively on a stick of straw .
  • (6) 9.31am BST Jack Straw , the Labour former home secretary, was on the Today programme earlier talking about the "plebgate" affair.
  • (7) Never had I heard anything about what I saw documented so unsparingly in Evan’s photographs: families sleeping in the streets, their clothes in shreds, straw hats torn and unprotecting of the sun, guajiros looking for work on the doorsteps of Havana’s indifferent mansions.
  • (8) This paper investigates the effect of straw handling on the viability of 2-cell mouse embryos rapidly frozen in dimethyl sulphoxide (DMSO) solutions.
  • (9) "I have just seen a piece of straw flying over, which the hon lady is attempting to clutch at!"
  • (10) Jack Straw's detailed blueprint for a 300- strong, wholly elected upper chamber to replace the Lords appears to have been blocked at the last minute following resistance in cabinet.
  • (11) That was the straw that broke the camel's back and we thought it better to stop it dead in it tracks now.
  • (12) Straw meal integration had a gravidity-conditioned influence on the daily N balance.
  • (13) The highest level of contamination with fungi was observed in the concentrate feed mixture followed by clover hay and rice straw.
  • (14) Insemination with semen stored in 0.5-ml French straws was performed daily during the periovulatory period while the modified Insler score was 10 or greater out of 15.
  • (15) It’s still unclear which candidates will choose to compete in the straw poll and mount actual efforts to attract Iowans.
  • (16) Shortly after Blair and Straw issued their denials, Sir Richard Dearlove, who was head of MI6 at the time, said: "It was a political decision, having very significantly disarmed Libya, for the government to co-operate with Libya on Islamist terrorism.
  • (17) Hundred twenty three samples of bull semen fluid frozen at 196 degrees C including 83 plastic ampules, 20 granules and 20 plastic straws obtained from the containers of the insemination stations of 10 farms from the Sofia district were investigated.
  • (18) Mariah Carey 's need for a staff member to carry her drink and prop up the bendy bit of her straw is what makes me love her so much.
  • (19) Despite the freezing curve assayed, both the mini-straws and the bags depicted much shorter freezing point plateaus as compared to the maxi-straws.
  • (20) Even Jack Straw is trying to close down some of its overripe practices.

Stray


Definition:

  • (a.) To wander, as from a direct course; to deviate, or go out of the way.
  • (a.) To wander from company, or from the proper limits; to rove at large; to roam; to go astray.
  • (a.) Figuratively, to wander from the path of duty or rectitude; to err.
  • (v. t.) To cause to stray.
  • (v. i.) Having gone astray; strayed; wandering; as, a strayhorse or sheep.
  • (n.) Any domestic animal that has an inclosure, or its proper place and company, and wanders at large, or is lost; an estray. Used also figuratively.
  • (n.) The act of wandering or going astray.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Stray bottles were thrown over the barriers towards officers to cheers and chants of: “Shame on you, we’re human too.” The Met deployed what it described as a “significant policing operation”, including drafting in thousands of extra officers to tackle expected unrest, after previous events ended in arrests and clashes with police across the centre of the capital.
  • (2) Until that point, Bravo had looked assured, often straying 30 yards off his goal-line and confident enough to try a couple of passes that many goalkeepers would consider too risky.
  • (3) Spatial distribution of the disease correlated with indirect EIA data on healthy urban population (3116 persons examined) and stray dogs (152 animals examined).
  • (4) At peak times 1,300 vehicles an hour will use the lanes, with non-Olympic motorists fined £130 if they stray into them.
  • (5) The helicopter strayed more than a mile into Turkish airspace, but crashed inside Syria after being hit by missiles fired from the jet, Turkish officials said at the time.
  • (6) Guardiola has ever-so-slightly strayed away from what has made Barcelona so brilliant now, and there are certainly questions to be asked about how Busquets-Iniesta-Xavi triumvirate has been disrupted by Cesc Fabregas.
  • (7) Lula responded by insisting that his government would not stray from its quest to protect the Amazon and appointed another high-profile environmentalist, Green party founder Carlos Minc, as his new minister.
  • (8) "Stray bullets are part of my life here," says Jessica, a 17-year-old football coach.
  • (9) Hence stray voltage may threaten farm animal health and production wherever modern animal housing is applied.
  • (10) But in 14 years, the search for international justice in Africa has strayed far from the "never again" principle, and into the murkier waters of deals and fixes.
  • (11) Bedoya then strays offside on the other side of the pitch.
  • (12) In his search for a new economic model for the paper that would take it into a secure digital future, Thompson has been experimenting with innovations that appear to stray from his corporate bunker on the 16th floor of the Times building into the editorial realm.
  • (13) Turkey has said the jet mistakenly strayed into Syrian air space on Friday, but was quickly warned to leave by Turkish authorities and was a mile inside international airspace when it was shot down.
  • (14) You made sure that Mairead "stuck to the story", checking with her at every opportunity that she wasn't going to stray, as you put it.
  • (15) The laboratories without stray light problems reported results with less instrument-to-instrument variation, the results followed a symmetrical distribution, and the mean of the results provided an accurate estimate of the absorbance of the solutions.
  • (16) Others face more niggling problems: in a recent post on the local Facebook group “Eliminate All Stray Dogs”, one resident claimed an unruly pack kept jumping on his car, destroying its windscreen wipers.
  • (17) and other species in stool specimens from stray dogs and cats in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
  • (18) Up to 4.5 million Russians were already expected to change holiday plans after the Turkish military shot down a Russian jet that strayed into Turkish airspace on a bombing mission over Syria, and military operations against Kurdish insurgents in the south-east have added to a sense of crisis.
  • (19) Udall barely mentioned government surveillance on the campaign trail, choosing instead to mount a singular focus on female voters, rarely straying from two topics : contraception and abortion.
  • (20) The four people arrested in the Gloucestershire cull zone were held on suspicion of aggravated trespass after police responded to reports of horns being blown and individuals straying from a public footpath.