straw

The dried parts of grasses or herbaceous plants, often used as fodder for animals (1Kgs 4:28; Gen 24:25; Gen 24:32). It is also the by-product of the processing of cultivated cereals, either the stubble of the cut grain left in the fields for the herds to graze over or the chaff separated by winnowing from the threshed grain (Ps 1:4; Ps 83:13). Straw was used as a binder for mud bricks (Exod 5:7-18) or, when mixed with animal dung, as an efficient fuel for kitchen hearths (Isa 25:10).