English

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Noun

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straw tick (plural straw ticks)

  1. A bed mattress made from a coarse cotton material, or shoddy, and filled with (usually) straw.
  2. The empty mattress bag of such a mattress.
    • 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.