The Last Straw

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Meaning:

The Last Straw means the final additional small burden that makes the entirety of one's difficulties unbearable.

“Ugg, that’s the last straw.”

Origin:

This phrase started out a bit longer than what we see today, the original saying was

Now you might think straw is light, how can that break a camel’s back? Well, a lot of small things can add up to a big heavy pile, and just like the phrase the last straw might be the one that makes the pile too heavy to handle.

The first written history where this phrase was used was in The Edinburgh Advertiser, in 1816:

"…Yet straw upon straw was laid till the last straw broke the camel's back."

Some scholars suggest that the phrase is a take on an old proverb that reads: 'it is the last feather that breaks the horse's back'. But that is a phrase for another video.

Example:

Today we still use the phrase in its shortened version, the last straw, we use it to say that we cannot take it anymore. We are done, fed up, an example sentence is:

“It had been a difficult week, so when the car broke down, it was the last straw.”

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