An Americanism dating back to 1890–95
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The one name you will not find in that essay is Lance Armstrong, who was the straw boss of the team during Vaughters’s short time around the Tour.
From New York Times ● Aug. 24, 2012
Dunn will now be McNamara's straw boss in charge of some $1 billion worth of work and 40,000 military and civilian engineers.
From Time Magazine Archive
In his sharply tailored suits, pointed-toe shoes, dark glasses and pinkie ring, Cammillieri was an unlikely looking straw boss for an office building construction gang.
From Time Magazine Archive
Rather, he will be a Pentagon straw boss for missiles, working for the President through Killian and Defense Secretary Neil McElroy.
From Time Magazine Archive
The straw boss had no faith in her, having watched her sweating hard to fill her sack as quickly as the children, but she was highly and suddenly vocal in her determination.
From "Jazz" by Toni Morrison
Last week, while the tools and blueprints were still being got together, it sent Indiana's slightly dented political knight-errant, Paul V. McNutt, off to Manila as High Com missioner, to straw-boss the work.
From Time Magazine Archive
A hard-thinking strategist and Rayburn's straw-boss member of the Rules Committee, Boiling had started preparing for the battle months ahead of time.
From Time Magazine Archive
The U.S. got a topnotch builder last week to straw-boss its 41,000-mile interstate-highway program.
From Time Magazine Archive
The straw-boss was looking at him coldly, and Bill moved farther away.
From The Snow-Burner by Oyen, Henry
He regarded his former straw-boss with narrowing eyes, and Atkins roped out a bronk; but in the evening he took the first occasion to pick a quarrel with Brigham.
From Bat Wing Bowles by Coolidge, Dane
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
