straw in the wind

English

Noun

straw in the wind (plural straws in the wind)

1. (chiefly in the plural) A premonitory sign.
   • 1913 August, Jack London, chapter XXIX, in John Barleycorn, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC, pages 263–264:

     There were little hints then that I did not take, little straws in the wind that I did not see, little incidents the gravity of which I did not realize.

   • 1950 November, “Segregation Blunted”, in The Crisis, page 647:

     […] and the decision of the United States Supreme Court virtually commanding the Florida Supreme Court to reverse its ruling banning Negroes from playing on a city-owned golf course in Miami are straws in the wind showing that segregation is becoming more and more unworkable.

   • 2022 September 8, Stephen Bates, “Queen Elizabeth II obituary”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

     Although no word has ever really emerged of what the Queen has really thought of her prime ministers, there has always been a sense that she did not get on terribly well with Thatcher. Some of this is doubtless wishful thinking, but there were sufficient straws in the wind to give it some credence, such as the story that the prime minister asked what the sovereign intended to wear to an event so as to avoid a clash, only to be told frostily that Her Majesty did not pay any attention to what other people wore.