haywire
adjective/ˈheɪwaɪə(r)/
/ˈheɪwaɪər/
Word Originearly 20th cent. (originally US): from hay + wire, from the use of hay-baling wire in makeshift repairs.
Idioms Idioms
See haywire in the Oxford Advanced American Dictionarygo haywire
- (informal) to stop working correctly or become out of control
- After that, things started to go haywire.
- The clock seems to have gone a bit haywire.
Want to learn more?
Find out which words work together and produce more natural sounding English with the Oxford Collocations Dictionary app.
Check pronunciation:
haywire