straw tick

English

Noun

straw tick (plural straw ticks)

1. A bed mattress made from a coarse cotton material, or shoddy, and filled with (usually) straw.
2. Also used to refer to the empty mattress bag.
   • 1949, Harper's Magazine, page 91:

     A straw tick was as important to a bed as the feather.
     A feather bed was good forever, but the life of a straw tick was from thrashing to thrashing.