Meaning
The final, often minor, addition to a series of difficulties that makes a situation unbearable - the last small burden after which someone gives up, loses their temper, or walks away. Almost always used with a possessive, as in 'that was the last straw for her'. Neutral register and very common; 'the final straw' is the usual British alternative wording. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The short form is an ellipsis of 'the last straw that breaks the camel's back', and the camel was a latecomer. The earliest recorded English version speaks of a feather and a horse: in the mid-1650s debate on free will, Thomas Hobbes wrote that 'the last Feather may be said to break a Horses Back' when many had been laid on before, and Bishop John Bramhall echoed the image in his 1655 reply. The camel appears by 1799, when a writer in The Scots Magazine called 'the last straw that overloads the camel' an Oriental proverb - a framing The Phrase Finder treats as the writer's own gloss rather than evidence of an Eastern source. The full English form is recorded in 1816 ('straw upon straw was laid till the last straw broke the camel's back'), Dickens popularised the camel image in Dombey and Son (1848), and Etymonline, as cited by The Phrase Finder, dates the clipped 'the last straw' standing alone to 1836.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- The final straw
- The last straw that breaks the camel's back
- The straw that breaks the camel's back
- The straw that broke the camel's back
Usage Examples
- The delayed flight was bad, but the cancelled hotel booking was the last straw.
- When the landlord raised the rent again, that was the last straw, and she started flat-hunting that same evening.
- His sarcastic reply in the meeting proved the last straw for a team already worn thin by his excuses.