# straw man
## English
### Alternative forms

* strawman

### Etymology

From straw +‎ man. Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1986 passim, shows first known usages for things insubstantial date to 1585-95. Universal Dictionary of the English Language, 1897, Vol 4, p. 4485, notes “man of straw” as “The figure of a man formed of an old suit of clothes stuffed with straw; hence, the mere resemblance of a man; one of no substance or means; an imaginary person.”
Compare West Frisian strieman, Dutch strooman, stroman, German Strohmann, Danish stråmand, Swedish stråman, Norwegian stråmann.

### Noun

straw man (plural straw men)
* A doll or scarecrow, particularly one stuffed with straw.
* (figurative) An innocuous person or someone of nominal or lesser importance, as a front man or straw boss.
* (figurative) An insubstantial concept, idea, endeavor or argument, particularly one deliberately set up to be weakly supported, e.g. by misrepresenting an opponent's argument by broadening or narrowing the scope of a premise, so that it can be easily knocked down; especially to impugn the strength of any related or contrasted thing or idea.
    Antonym: steelman
** 2018, Lars Ljungqvist and Thomas J. Sargent, Recursive macroeconomic theory, 4th edition, MIT Press, page 4:This Euler inequality recurs as either the cornerstone or the straw man in many theories contained in this book.
* (figurative, engineering, business) An outline serving as an initial proposal for a project, usually refined iteratively.
    a tentative straw-man spec
* Synonym of straw buyer
** 2000, John W. Reilly, The Language of Real Estate, page 381:If a broker or a salesperson attempts to use a straw man to purchase property for which he or she has a listing, the real estate person must specifically disclose in writing to the seller this relationship with the buyer.

#### Translations
### Verb

straw man (third-person singular simple present straw mans, present participle straw manning, simple past and past participle straw manned)
* To falsely attribute an insubstantial argument (a straw man argument) to another through direct declaration or indirect implication; to put words in someone's mouth.
    Coordinate term: steelman
    Person A: "Cats have claws." Person B: "Not all cats have claws: some are declawed." Person A: "Don't straw man me; I never said all."
** 1996 [Vale Press], Ralph H. Johnson, The Rise of Informal Logic, Windsor Studies in Argumentation, 2014, E-edition, page 178,
    I have also argued that he is guilty of straw manning Copi and that his charge of shoddy reasoning against Kahane makes use of an equivocation on the concept of fallacy.
** 2016, Stijn Smismans, “5: Regulatory Procedure and Participation in the European Union”, in Francesca Bignami, David Zaring, editors, Comparative Law and Regulation, Edward Elgar Publishing, page 133:$^{11}$ It should, however, also be noted that in certain cases later "neo-corporatist authors" straw manned the pluralist model, making it easier to criticise (Nedelmann and Meier, 1979: 94).
** 2021, John T. Lysaker, Philosophy, Writing, and the Character of Thought, University of Chicago Press, page 39:My point does not concern the principle of charity or whether Hickman has straw manned postmodernism.

### See also

* straw poll
* straw shoe
* straw vote

### Further reading

* straw man on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
* straw man proposal on Wikipedia.Wikipedia