Chapter Store to Straw of S by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

to the practice of filtering wine for fear of swallowing an insect, which was “unclean.” Tyndale has “strain out” in his version. Our expression “strain at” is a corruption of strain-ut, “ut” being the Saxon form of out, retained in the words ut-most, utter, uttermost, etc.
   The quality of mercy is not strained (Merchant of Venice, iv. 1)- constrained or forced, but cometh down freely as the rain, which is God's gift.

Stralenheim (Count of). A feudal baron who hunted Werner like a partridge in order to obtain his inheritance. Ulric, Werner's son, saved him from the Oder, but subsequently murdered him. (Byron: Werner.)

Strand (London). The bank of the Thames (Saxon for a beach or shore); whence stranded, run ashore or grounded.

Strange (1 syl.). Latin, extra (without); whence extraneus (one without); old French, estrange; Italian, strano, etc. Stranger, therefore, is extraneus, one without.

Stranger of the Gate (The). (See under Proselyte .)

Strangers Sacrificed It is said that Busiris, King of Egypt, sacrificed to his gods all strangers that set foot on his territories. Diomed, King of Thrace, gave strangers to his horses for food. (See Diomedes .)

“Oh fly, or here with strangers' blood imbrued
Busiris' altars thou shalt find renewed:
Amidst his slaughtered guests his altars stood
Obscene with gore, and baked with human blood.”
Camoens: Lusiad, book ii.

Strap Oil A beating. A corruption of strap 'eil, i.e. German theil (a dole). The play is palpable. The “April fool” asks for a pennyworth of strap 'eil, that is dole of the strap, in French l'huile de cotret. (Latin, stroppus.)

Strappado A military punishment formerly practised; it consisted of pulling an offender to a beam and then letting him down suddenly; by this means a limb was not unfrequently dislocated. (Italian, strappare, to pull.)

“Were I at the strappado or the rack, I'd give no man a reason on compulsion.”- Shakespeare: 1 Henry IV., ii. 4.

Strasburg Goose (A). A goose fattened, crammed, and confined in order to enlarge its liver. Metaphorically, one crammed with instruction and kept from healthy exercise in order to pass examinations.

“The anæmic, myopic, worn-out creature who comes to [the army]- a new kind of Strasburg goose.”- Nineteenth Century, January, 1893, p. 26.

Stratagem means generalship. (Greek, strategos, a general; stratos- ago, to lead an army.)

Straw Servants wishing to be hired used to go into the market-place of Carlisle (Carel) with a straw in their mouth. (See Mop .)

“At Carel I stuid wi' a strae i my mouth,
The weyves com roun' me in custers;
What weage dus te ax, canny lad? says yen.”
Anderson: Cumberland Ballads.

Straw, chopped or otherwise, at a wedding, signifies that the bride is no virgin. Flowers indicate purity or virginity, but straw is only the refuse from which corn has been already taken.
   A little straw shows which way the wind blows. Mere trifles often indicate the coming on of momentous events. They are shadows cast before coming events.
   A man of straw. A man without means; a Mrs. Harris; a sham. In French, “Un homme de paille,” like a malkin. (See Man Of Straw.)
   I have a straw to break with you. I am displeased with you; I have a reproof to give you. In feudal times possession of a fief was conveyed by giving a straw to the new tenant. If the tenant misconducted himself, the lord dispossessed him by going to the threshold of his door and breaking a straw, saying as he did so, “As I break this straw, so break I the contract made between us.” In allusion to this custom, it is said in Reynard the Fox - "The kinge toke up a straw fro' the ground, and pardoned and forguf the Foxe,” on condition that the Fox showed King Lion where the treasures were hid (ch. v.).
   In the straw. “Être en couche” (in bed). The phrase is applied to women in childbirth. The allusion is to the straw with which beds were at one time usually stuffed, and not to the litter laid before a house to break the noise of wheels passing by. The Dutch of Haarlem and Enckhuysen, when a woman is confined, expose a pin-cushion at the street-door. If the babe is a boy, the pin-cushion has a red fringe, if a girl a white