strawbed

English

Alternative forms

• straw-bed, straw bed

Etymology

straw +‎ bed

Noun

strawbed (plural strawbeds)

1. A mattress made of dry straw in a cloth sack, often used beneath a featherbed or other softer mattress.
   • 1946, Knut Liestøl, Scottish and Norwegian Ballads - Issues 1-4, page 157:

     The lying-in woman was not allowed to lie in bed, but a strawbed was prepared for her on the floor.

   • 1967, North Carolina Folklore - Volumes 15-18, page 180:

     To cut down labor pains , put something made of iron or steel between the strawbed and the featherbed.

   • 1987, Karl Fuchs, Horst Fuchs Richardson, Dennis E. Showalter, Sieg Heil!: war letters of Tank Gunner Karl Fuchs, 1937-1941, page 24:

     It is very difficult for me to make my strawbed in accordance with military regulations.

   • 1990, Michigan History - Volumes 74-75, page 8:

     Molitor escaped and "hid in the strawbed of his French mistress" before inexplicably leaving Germany and "arriving safely" in New York.

2. (Bahamas) Childbirth.
   • 1960, Bahamas Handbook and Businessman's Annual:

     An old woman called "Ala Ju" (Mother Julia) walked three miles to get me a sample of the Granny Bush (Croton linearis), whose leaves are steeped and given to women for nine days after childbirth, or "strawbed" as it is termed here.

   • 1969, Mrs. Leslie Higgs, Bush Medicine in the Bahamas, page 15:

     It grows profusely in the Bahamas. It is used for "building up men's energy and body" and as a sponge bath for women, "after they come out of strawbed".

   • 1994, Patricia Glinton-Meicholas, How to be a True-true Bahamian, page 47:

     "Strawbed fever" results from an infection caught in "strawbed" (childbirth).

See also

• bedstraw

Anagrams

• bedstraw