haywire


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Related to haywire: go haywire

hay·wire

 (hā′wīr′)
n.
Wire used in baling hay.
adj. Informal
1. Not functioning or happening in a proper or orderly fashion: machinery that went haywire; an experiment that went haywire.
2. Mentally confused or erratic; crazy: The traveler went haywire over the endless delays.

[From the use of baling wire for makeshift repairs .]
Word History: Why should wire used in baling hay be a metaphor for something that is not functioning properly or for a person who is crazy? It would seem a story of semantics gone haywire. From the written record, it appears the use originated among North American loggers around 1900, who often used haywire to make repairs. These repairs were often considered shoddy or unreliable, and haywire developed the general sense "makeshift, inefficient," from which come the extended senses "not functioning properly" and "crazy."
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

haywire

(ˈheɪˌwaɪə)
adj (postpositive)
1. (of things) not functioning properly; disorganized (esp in the phrase go haywire)
2. (of people) erratic or crazy
[C20: alluding to the disorderly tangle of wire removed from bales of hay]
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

hay•wire

(ˈheɪˌwaɪər)

n.
1. wire used to bind bales of hay.
adj.
2. in disorder.
3. out of control; disordered; crazy.
[1900–05]
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Noun1.haywire - wire for tying up bales of hay
wire - ligament made of metal and used to fasten things or make cages or fences etc
Adj.1.haywire - informal or slang terms for mentally irregularhaywire - informal or slang terms for mentally irregular; "it used to drive my husband balmy"
insane - afflicted with or characteristic of mental derangement; "was declared insane"; "insane laughter"
2.haywire - not functioning properlyhaywire - not functioning properly; "something is amiss"; "has gone completely haywire"; "something is wrong with the engine"
malfunctioning, nonfunctional - not performing or able to perform its regular function; "a malfunctioning valve"
Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.

haywire

adjective
1. chaotic, confused, disordered, tangled, mixed up, shambolic (informal), topsy-turvy, disorganized, disarranged Many Americans think their legal system is haywire.
2. out of order, out of commission, on the blink (slang), on the fritz (slang) Her pacemaker went haywire near hand dryers.
3. (of people) crazy, wild, mad, potty (Brit. informal), berserk, bonkers (slang, chiefly Brit.), loopy (informal), mad as a hatter I went haywire in our first few weeks on holiday.
Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002
Translations
سِلْك مَعْدَني
pomatenýrozbitý
skudder-mudder
bilaîur; klikkaîur
pomätený
kontroldan çıkmışsapıtmış

haywire

[ˈheɪwaɪəʳ] ADJ to go haywire [person] → volverse loco, perder la chaveta; [machine] → averiarse, malograrse (LAm); [scheme etc] → irse a pique
the switchboard went haywirese colapsó la centralita
Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

haywire

[ˈheɪwaɪər] adj
to go haywire [system, procedure] → être détraqué(e), être chamboulé(e)
Work schedules have gone haywire → Le planning de travail a été chamboulé.
Things went haywire → Tout s'est détraqué.
Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

haywire

adj pred (inf) to be (all) haywire(vollständig) durcheinander or ein Wirrwarr (inf)sein; the local economy is all haywire againdie örtliche Wirtschaft ist wieder im Chaos versunken (inf); to go haywire (= go crazy)durchdrehen (inf); (plans, arrangements) → durcheinandergeraten, über den Haufen geworfen werden (inf); (machinery) → verrücktspielen (inf)
Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

haywire

[ˈheɪˌwaɪəʳ] adj (fam) to go haywire (person) → dare i numeri, perdere la testa; (machine) → impazzire; (scheme, system) → andare a catafascio
Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

hay

(hei) noun
grass, cut and dried, used as food for cattle etc.
ˌhay-ˈfever noun
an illness like a bad cold, caused by the pollen of flowers etc.
ˈhayrick (-rik) , ˈhay-stack nouns
hay built up into a large pile.
ˈhaywire adjective
in a state of disorder; crazy. Our computer has gone haywire.
Kernerman English Multilingual Dictionary © 2006-2013 K Dictionaries Ltd.
References in periodicals archive ?
The Scots screen star writhed in agony after landing a right hook on tough nut Gina Carano in new flick Haywire.
Trains trigger sensors on the track which relay the information to the indicators - but they go haywire when part of the line is closed.
Westworld: Robots go haywire and start killing humans.
The loo isn't the only machine going haywire. British Telecom has revealed that traffic lights, soft drink machines and fridges have also been making phantom calls.
Tyro director-writer Brad Haywire was forced to sell his car to raise some of the $A35,000 ($23,800) to shoot for his debut feature, "Occasional Coarse Language." Chances are he'll never need to sacrifice his wheels again as Village Roadshow Pictures just snapped up worldwide rights to that pic, and sealed a first-look deal for his next two projects.
According to research by property consultant FPD Savills, so-called intelligent buildings could be hit as embedded systems - found in the everyday office plant and machinery such as lifts, access systems, telecommunications, security and fire systems, air conditioning and generators - see their internal calendars switch to the year zero as the new Millennium begins and go haywire
This serenity, which can sometimes verge on stasis, is new for Puckette; her earlier work featured a compulsive, allover line that looked like a handwriting exercise gone haywire. These images seemed tooled by a scratchy stylus, while the current forms have all the free-moving grace of Asian brushwork.
BITTERSWEET: Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones SAD DRAMA: The Kid With A Bike LEAN AND MEAN: Spy thriller Haywire WEILDING THE POWER: Chronicle
Adding the Albright special and haywire twist to your repertoire will let you work with singlestrand wire like a pro.
He said movie bosses would find it difficult to take the movie further because the original books go "haywire" after The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader.
I like to imagine the predictive text went haywire and he meant to say 'gutsy'.
Things started to go haywire when the 26-year-old appeared before Newcastle Magistrates.