Dictionary

windlestraw en · NOUN

Etymology

From windle + straw.

Meanings

1. (Scotland, UK, countable, dialectal, uncountable) A grass used for making ropes or for plaiting, especially Apera spica-venti.
   • Grey rocks did peep from the square moss, and stemmed / The struggling brook: tall spires of windlestrae / Threw their thin shadows down the rugged slope, / And nought but gnarlèd roots of ancient pines, / Branchless and blasted, clenched with grasping roots / The unwilling soil. 1816, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Alastor:

Forms