Crossword clues for jackstraw
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Jackstraw \Jack"straw`\, n.
An effigy stuffed with straw; a scarecrow; hence, a man without property or influence.
--Milton.One of a set of straws of strips of ivory, bone, wood, etc., for playing a child's game, the jackstraws being thrown confusedly together on a table, to be gathered up singly by a hooked instrument, without touching or disturbing the rest of the pile. See Spilikin. A modern variation, called pick-up-sticks (U.S. 1940+), is played with thin wooden sticks of different colors, each color having different values for scoring; the sticks are dislodged from the pile with the hand or with one of the sticks.
Wiktionary
n. 1 (qualifier: usually plural) One of the pieces used for the game variously called jackstraws or pick-up-sticks. 2 (context obsolete English) An insignificant person.
WordNet
n. a thin strip of wood used in playing the game of jackstraws [syn: spillikin]
Usage examples of "jackstraw".
She thinks of Daud lying under the Christmas green LEDs of his automated bed, his eye dull with endorphins, waiting for Jackstraw, who would not come, having no one to turn to but the sister he fears.
Staples, for Courtenay told Jack that the party had not broken up till past midnight, and that when it came to playing Jackstraws the Nonesuch had them all beat to flinders, even Miss Trent, who had such deft fingers.
There was virtually nothing left inside, though the chimney stack still stood, and jagged bits of the walls remained, their logs fallen like jackstraws.
But though we set up the apparatus outside while Jackstraw was refuelling and Corazzini sat astride the bicycle seat and cranked the generator handle while I tapped out our call sign for almost ten unbroken minutes, no shadow of an answer came through.
Jackstraw had drawn up broadside on to the wind and the slope of the hill and I jumped down to rig up a canvas shelter extending out from the cabin: it was nothing elaborate, just a triangular sheet of proofed canvas attached to the top of the cabin and the cleat of a caterpillar track on its vertical side, with its apex stretched out to a spike hammered into the surface of the ice-cap: there was no room for us all within the cabin at meal-times, I wanted some protection when we kept our 8 a.
About three o'clock in the morning, still following the flag trail that stretched out interminably before us in the long rake of the headlights, we felt the tractor slow down and Jackstraw, who was driving at the time, change gear as we entered on the first gentle slope of the long foothills that led to the winding pass that cut the Vindeby Nunataks almost exactly in half.
I asked Margaret Ross to heat some food on the stove - soup, dried fruit, one of our four remaining tins of corned beef - asked Jackstraw to rig up the antenna for the radio, then went back to the tractor, stooped and turned the radiator drainage cap, catching the liquid hi a can.
We could hear the barking of dogs, and we lost no time in lowering the odds and ends down to Jackstraw who loaded them on the sledge.
Jackstraw was wide awake -1 was pretty sure he'd never shut an eye lest one of us slip away from sleep into that easy frozen sleep from which there would have been no wakening - and Zagero was stirring.
Gloves off, I kneaded my face vigorously with my mittened hands until I felt the blood pounding painfully back, then took the old jersey which Jackstraw dug out from a gunny sack and wrapped it round my face.
I dumped the pile of clothes I was carrying on a seat, nodded at them and the contents of a gunny sack Joss and Jackstraw were emptying.
Banningham was even denied the solace of picturing the Nonesuch's boredom at Staples, for Courtenay told Jack that the party had not broken up till past midnight, and that when it came to playing Jackstraws the Nonesuch had them all beat to flinders, even Miss Trent, who had such deft fingers.
After that, Tiffany renewed her demand that they should play at Jackstraws, which enabled Miss Trent to retire into the back drawing-room, where she became busy, finding the straws, and settling the four youngest members of the party round the table.
Within seconds, people were falling down like children's jackstraws, piled every which way.
We know that none of the visible things is the key to this pile of magical jackstraws, but did it occur to you that there might be something here that is not visible?