strawman
1
7.6
- noun
- /ˈstrɔˌmæn/
:
espantapájaros
- The children played near the strawman, pretending it was a scarecrow made of straw.
Examples
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Like a strawman set up to be torn down; a distraction, hand waving.
Blog text (16) -
Farmers often set up a strawman in their fields to keep birds from eating the crops.
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Which strawman are you referring to?
Blog text (18) -
Picking out a strawman Austrian on the internet and burning it is not adequate.
Blog text (34) -
During Halloween, we made a strawman to decorate the yard and scare trick-or-treaters.
Synonyms
54
1.8
A thing that looks like a person to keep birds away from fields
A figure made of straw and old clothes used to scare birds from crops
A thing that people put in fields to keep birds away from crops
A thing like a human figure placed in fields to frighten birds from crops
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
Strawman comes from the plain words straw and man, meaning 'a human shape made of straw', like a scarecrow. So it refers to an effigy set up to scare birds away from crops.