Strawen

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Scattered loosely over a surface, as in an archaic past participle of a verb meaning to spread things about
2. Having been spread or sprinkled about an area, in an old-fashioned literary form of the past participle
3. Covered or dotted with things that have been thrown or scattered about, used as an archaic participle

Etymology: "Strawen" is a word that is simply what it looks like: "straw" with the suffix "-en" added, and its meaning is "made of straw." The adjective was formed in Middle English, the English of the centuries after the Norman Conquest, when speakers attached "-en" to nouns to turn them into adjectives describing material. Gold became "golden," wood became "wooden," and straw became "strawen," so the word is a plain, transparent coinage rather than a loan from another language. The word "straw" itself is far older, descending from Old English, where it was "strēaw," tied to the verb "to strew," since straw was originally what was scattered on floors and beds. Anyone who has seen a word like "strawen" before will recognize the same pattern in "woolen" and "earthen," both built the same way from their base nouns.