The traditional lignocellulose pretreatment by deep eutectic solvent (DES) was usually conducted under higher acidic, alkaline and high temperature conditions, which leads to the severe degradation of xylan, decreasing the subsequent reducing sugar concentration by enzymatic hydrolysis and further ethanol fermentation. It is essential to develop an effective DES that selectively removes lignin while preventing excessive xylan degradation during lignocellulose pretreatment. An effective ethylene glycol-assisted ternary DES was designed to treat corn straw (CS) at 100 °C for 6 h. 65.51 % lignin removal was achieved, over 93.46 % cellulose and 50.22 % xylan were retained in pretreated CS with excellent enzymatic digestibility (glucan conversion of 77.05 % and xylan conversion of 71.72 %), total sugar conversion could reach 75.93 %, implying the unique capacity to selectively remove lignin while preserving carbohydrate components. Furthermore, the universality of the selective removal of lignin and effective retention of xylan by ternary DES has been successfully proven by other polyols. The enzymatic hydrolysate of ternary DES-pretreated CS fermented over our genetically engineered yeast strain SFA1 gave a high ethanol yield of 0.488 g/g total reducing sugar, demonstrating the effectiveness of the polyol-assisted ternary DES pretreatment in achieving high-efficiency cellulosic ethanol production.