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haywire

 - 5 dictionary results

hay⋅wire

[hey-wahyuhr]
–noun
1. wire used to bind bales of hay.
–adjective Informal.
2. in disorder: The town is haywire because of the bus strike.
3. out of control; disordered; crazy: The car went haywire. He's been haywire since he got the bad news.

Origin:
1900–05; hay + wire
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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hay·wire   (hā'wīr')   
n.  Wire used in baling hay.
adj.   Informal
  1. Mentally confused or erratic; crazy: went haywire over the interminable delays.

  2. Not functioning properly; broken.


[From the use of baling wire for makeshift repairs .]
Word History: Why should the word for something as functional and mundane as haywire have come to be applied to something that is not functioning properly or to a person who is crazy? It would seem a story of semantics gone haywire. Haywire is a compound of the words hay and wire, originally simply denoting wire used to bale hay or straw. The term is first recorded as a noun in a debate in the Canadian House of Commons (1917), so it is a Canadianism or, since it appeared soon thereafter in a U.S. publication, a North Americanism. We find an earlier (1905) attributive use in the phrase hay wire outfit, a term used contemptuously for poorly equipped loggers. What lies behind this term is the practice of making repairs with haywire. Haywire is found in other contexts with the general sense "makeshift, inefficient," from which come the extended senses "not functioning properly" and "crazy."
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Slang Dictionary
haywire [ˈhewɑɪr]

  1. mod.
    out of order. (Folksy.) : This telephone has gone haywire.
  2. mod.
    disoriented. (Often from marijuana.) : Willy is sort of haywire from the grass.
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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Word Origin & History

haywire 
"poorly equipped, makeshift," 1905, Amer.Eng., lit. "soft wire for binding bales of hay," from hay + wire. The extended sense being of something only held together with this, particularly said to be from use in New England lumber camps for jerry-rigging and makeshift purposes, so that haywire outfit became the term for a logging camp chronically ill-equipped and short on suplies. Its springy, uncontrollable quality led to the sense in go haywire (1929).
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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Idioms & Phrases

haywire

see go haywire.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
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