Haywire definition

hāwīr

Wire used in baling hay.

noun

The definition of haywire is something that has gone wrong or that is not working correctly.

When every aspect of your plan falls apart, this is an example of when things have gone haywire.

adjective

Not functioning or happening in a proper or orderly fashion.

Machinery that went haywire; an experiment that went haywire.

adjective

Mentally confused or erratic; crazy.

The traveler went haywire over the endless delays.

adjective

Wire for tying up bales of hay, straw, etc.

noun

Out of order; disorganized; confused.

adjective

Crazy.

adjective

Wire used to bind bales of hay.

noun

Roughly-made, unsophisticated, decrepit (from the use of haywire for temporary repairs).

adjective

Behaving erratically or uncontrollably, especially of a machine or mechanical process; usually used with the verb "go".

adjective

(informal) go haywire

idiom

Other Word Forms

Singular:

haywire

Plural:

haywires

go haywire

From the use of baling wire for makeshift repairs

From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
hay +‎ wire To go haywire possibly originally referred to the tendency of wire spooled under tension and used in the baling of hay to spring into an unmanageable tangle once a piece had been removed from the factory spool, e.g., "he took off the back of his watch, removed a gear and the whole works went haywire." Or a tendency of slap-dash repairs done with scraps of baling wire to fail catastrophically at times of mechanical stress. Perhaps the meaning of haywire – all in disarray or disrepair – stems from this expression.

From Wiktionary