haywire
adverb or adjective
Chris NeigerAustin Knoblauch and Jeff MillerCollette O'Hagan
Did you know?
The noun haywire refers to a type of wire once used in baling hay and sometimes for makeshift repairs. This hurried and temporary use of haywire gave rise to the adjective (and sometimes adverb) haywire. When the adjective was first used in the early 20th century, it was primarily found in the phrase “haywire outfit,” which originally denoted a poorly equipped group of loggers, and then anything that was flimsy or patched together. This led to a “hastily patched-up” sense, which in turn gave us the now-common meaning, “being out of order or having gone wrong.” The “emotionally or mentally upset or out of control” sense of haywire may have been suggested by the tendency of the relatively weak and rust-prone wire to fail at inopportune times, or to get tangled around legs, or possibly to the disorderly appearance of the temporary repair jobs for which it was used.
Examples of haywire in a Sentence
Scott K. Johnson, Ars Technica, 14 May 2020
The beat, though played on a physical drum kit, feels like one of later Kraftwerk’s methodical midtempo pulses — until things go psychedelically haywire.
—Jon Pareles, New York Times, 7 May 2020
Companies and consumers flooded U.S. banks with a record $1 trillion of deposits in the first quarter, when markets went haywire and America went dark to stop the spread of the new coronavirus.
—David Benoit, WSJ, 23 Apr. 2020
As the voyagers’ ship gets closer to the sun, everything on board goes more and more haywire, and Boyle—who can depict the onset of madness better than almost anyone working—dials up the chaos.
—David Sims, The Atlantic, 10 Apr. 2020
See All Example Sentences for haywire
Cite this Entry
“Haywire.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/haywire. Accessed 18 Jul. 2025.
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haywire
adverb or adjective
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