haywire
[ hey-wahyuh r ]
/ ˈheɪˌwaɪər /
noun
adjective Informal.
in disorder: The town is haywire because of the bus strike.
out of control; disordered; crazy: The car went haywire. He's been haywire since he got the bad news.
RELATED WORDS
screwball, nuts, psycho, berserk, amiss, batty, bonkers, chaotic, confused, cracked, crazed, defective, disordered, disorganized, erratic, insane, mad, messy, screwy, touched
Nearby words
- hays, will h.,
- hayseed,
- haystack,
- hayti,
- hayward,
- haywood,
- haywood, william dudley,
- hayworth,
- hazan,
- hazanim
Origin of haywire
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019
Examples from the Web for haywire
haywire
/ (ˈheɪˌwaɪə) /
adjective (postpositive) informal
(of things) not functioning properly; disorganized (esp in the phrase go haywire)
(of people) erratic or crazy
Word Origin for haywire
C20: alluding to the disorderly tangle of wire removed from bales of hay
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
haywire
"soft wire for binding bales of hay," by 1891, from hay + wire (n.). Adjective meaning "poorly equipped, makeshift" is 1905, American English, from the sense of something only held together with haywire, particularly said to be from use of the stuff in New England lumber camps for jury-rigging and makeshift purposes, so that hay wire outfit became the "contemptuous term for loggers with poor logging equipment" [Bryant, "Logging," 1913]. Its springy, uncontrollable quality led to the sense in go haywire (by 1915).
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
haywire
see go haywire.
The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.