in the straw

English

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Prepositional phrase

in the straw

1. (slang, archaic) Confined to bed because of pregnancy.
   • 1789, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney to James Madison, 28 March, in The Documentary History of the First Federal Elections 1788–1790, vol. 1, ed. Merrill Jensen and Robert A. Becker, University of Wisconsin Press, 1976, page 218:

     Excuse the blots and scrawl of this letter. I am writing in an astonishing hurry and my secretary is so much engaged in copying public, that he has no time to devote to private letters—and my female secretary is at present in the straw with a young gentleman who sends his compliments to you.