haywire
Pronunciation: /ˈheɪ.waɪ.ə(ɹ)/
The English word “haywire” has 4 meanings listed here.
noun
adjective
- Roughly-made, unsophisticated, decrepit (from the use of haywire for temporary repairs).
- Behaviorally erratic or uncontrollable, especially of a machine or mechanical process.
verb
Etymology
From hay + wire. The original meaning of “likely to become tangled unpredictably or unusably, or fall apart”, as though only bound with the kind of soft, springy wire used to bind hay bales comes from usage in New England lumber camps circa 1905 where haywire outfit became the common term to refer to slap-dash collections of logging tools. To go haywire has since evolved to represent the act of…
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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.