hay

¹

[hey]

noun

1. grass, clover, alfalfa, etc., cut and dried for use as forage.

2. grass mowed or intended for mowing.

3. Slang.

   1. a small sum of money.

      Twenty dollars an hour for doing very little certainly ain't hay.

   2. money.

      A thousand dollars for a day's work is a lot of hay!

4. Slang.,  marijuana.

verb (used with object)

1. to convert (plant material) into hay.

2. to furnish (horses, cows, etc.) with hay.

verb (used without object)

1. to cut grass, clover, or the like, and store for use as forage.

Hay

²

[hey]

noun

1. John Milton, 1838–1905, U.S. statesman and author.

2. a river in NW Canada, flowing NE to the Great Slave Lake. 530 miles (853 km) long.

hay

¹

/ heɪ /

noun

1. 1. grass, clover, etc, cut and dried as fodder

   2. ( in combination )

      a hayfield

      a hayloft

2. slang,  to go to bed

3. to throw into confusion

4. to take full advantage of an opportunity

5. informal,  sexual intercourse or heavy petting

verb

1. to cut, dry, and store (grass, clover, etc) as fodder

2. (tr) to feed with hay

hay

²

/ heɪ /

noun

1. a circular figure in country dancing

2. a former country dance in which the dancers wove in and out of a circle

Hay

³

/ heɪ /

noun

1. Will. 1888–1949, British music-hall comedian, who later starred in films, such as Oh, Mr Porter! (1937)

Other Word Forms

• hayey adjective
• unhayed adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of hay¹

before 900; Middle English; Old English hēg; cognate with German Heu, Old Norse hey, Gothic hawi. See hew

Word History and Origins

Origin of hay¹

Old English hieg; related to Old Norse hey, Gothic hawi, Old Frisian hē, Old High German houwi; see _hew

Origin of hay²

C16: of uncertain origin

Idioms and Phrases

Idioms

1. make hay of, to scatter in disorder; render ineffectual.

   The destruction of the manuscript made hay of two years of painstaking labor.

2. make hay while the sun shines, to seize an opportunity when it presents itself: Also make hay.

   If you want to be a millionaire, you have to make hay while the sun shines.

3. in the hay, in bed; retired, especially for the night.

   By ten o'clock he's in the hay.

4. hit the hay, to go to bed.

   It got to be past midnight before anyone thought of hitting the hay.

5. a roll in the hay, sexual intercourse.

see hit the hay; make hay while the sun shines; roll in the hay; that ain't hay.

Example Sentences

Hill, like thousands of other U.S. farmers, started growing more soybeans about three decades ago, switching from hay.

Read more on Wall Street Journal

With so much discounted oil on offer, Beijing and New Delhi have been making hay.

Read more on Wall Street Journal

A large portion of the water is used for agriculture, with much of it going to grow hay for cattle, as well as other crops including cotton, lettuce and broccoli.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

The family with the sick cats, he learned, lived less than a mile from an infected dairy, and the cat owner worked delivering hay to local dairies, spending time on infected farms.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

There would have been far too many opportunities for the Conservatives to bring the issue up time and again, to make political hay every time a business motion was tabled.

Read more on BBC

Related Words

• fodder 
• grass