Definition of "windlestraw" [windlestraw]

• Chiefly British A thin, dried stalk of grass. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "But before I found them, I encountered a windlestraw which showed which way blew the wind and gave promise of a very gale."
• "I knew the windlestraw, Guy de Villehardouin, a raw young provincial, come up the first time to Court, but a fiery little cockerel for all of that."
• "My dear man of moods! my good vagabond! my windlestraw of circumstance! constant only to one ideal -- the unattainable perfection in a kind of roguish art."