straw yard
1. A yard littered with straw, in which horses and cattle are wintered. Also attrib.
| 1787 W. H. Marshall E. Norfolk (1795) II. 378 Cow-par, straw-yard; fold-yard. 1789 ― Glouc. II. 76 His practice is to buy in large Welch bullocks at Gloucester... He gives them the run of the straw yard the first winter. 1801 Farmer's Mag. Aug. 251 Winterers, or straw-yard cattle, intended for next summer's grass. 1844 Queen's Regul. Army 371 Horses bought in the Winter, are, generally, subject to diseases in coming from straw-yards, or from the open fields, into Stables. 1904 Blackw. Mag. Aug. 185/2 Spacious straw-yards for artillery bullocks. |
2. slang. (See quot.)
| 1851 Mayhew Lond. Labour II. 138/2 The night asylums or refuges for the destitute (usually called ‘straw-yards’ by the poor). |
3. colloq. A (man's) straw hat.
| 1900 Westm. Gaz. 23 Apr. 9/2 The same hatter had sold two score ‘strawyards’ by noon to-day. |
Hence straw-yarder slang. (See quot.)
| 1853 N. & Q. Ser. i. VII. 342/2 A seaman..said that the captain..had manned his ship with a ‘lot of straw-yarders.’.. I was told that a ‘straw-yarder’ was a man about the docks who had never been to sea. |