Meaning

Wire used to bind bales of hay..

Definitions by Sense

1. Wire used to bind bales of hay.
2. Roughly-made, unsophisticated, decrepit (from the use of haywire for temporary repairs).
3. Behaviorally erratic or uncontrollable, especially of a machine or mechanical process.
4. (transitive, rare) To attach or fix with haywire.

Example Sentences

MOWERS AND HAY RAKES, HAY PRESSES, HAY TIES AND HAY WIRE.

It was working fine until it went haywire and wouldn't stop printing blank sheets.

Those kids go haywire when they don't get what they want.

The engineer who makes of his calling a burden, who sees nothing but the wrong, or imposition as he may term it, who fancies perhaps that the whole world has conspired against him, who commences to damn things as soon as he appears upon the scene of his labors, and continues to damn everything, including his train crew, the engine, the officers, and almost everything, animate and inanimate, while making the round trip, is working out his own destiny, and it is but charitable to say of such a man that he is not well, his digestion has gone " hay wire " as it were.

"I got phone orders at Tuolumne Meadows to pack up and come over Sunrise Trail. Started at sunrise. Everything haywire, including cranky pack horse which kept getting off trail. Phoned in at Vernal Falls station. Ordered to hurry down, help catch two auto thieves which broke jail just after breakfast. Assigned to guard Coulterville Road.

Temperatures soared—the seas warmed by as much as eighteen degrees—and the chemistry of the oceans went haywire, as if in an out-of-control aquarium.

Word Forms

• haywires
• more haywire
• most haywire
• haywiring
• haywired

Synonyms for haywire

Related Words

When Should You Use Haywire?

Use haywire when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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