1. To start malfunctioning or having problems. Well, the coffee pot has gone haywire yet again. Maybe it's time to get a new one.The campaign has gone haywire now that the manager has resigned.We were thinking of going to the beach, but that went haywire when it started pouring rain.
2. To become irrational or crazy. I'll end up going haywire if I have to work in this cubicle for one more day!Ever since the tragedy, it's like her mind has just gone haywire.It's freezing today, and you're not going to wear a coat? Have you gone around the bend?
Rur. to go wrong; to malfunction; to break down. I was talking to Mary when suddenly the telephone went haywire. I haven't heard from her since.There we were, driving along, when the engine went haywire. It was two hours before the tow truck came.
Become wildly confused, out of control, or crazy. For example, The plans for the party have gone haywire, or His enemies accused the mayor of going haywire. This term alludes to the wire used for bundling hay, which is hard to handle and readily tangled. [First half of 1900s]
To run amok; to become hopelessly entangled or to break down. There are two theories as to the origin of this term, which is originally American. One holds that it came from the practice of using old baling wire to make repairs, a makeshift solution at best. The other, upheld by H. L. Mencken, says it refers to the difficulty of handling coils of wire used for bundling hay, which readily become entangled.
Plusses are hard to find from a depressing season which seemed to go haywire from the moment inevitable victory over Nottinghamshire turned into dire defeat.
Glucose levels go haywire because hormones which control appetite succumb to a craving for sweet foods as the brain demands a "reward" for screen concentration.
But if the engineers pulled in the protruding track, the calculations that kept the train moving on the track would go haywire. "The whole ride wouldn't work," says Mesko.
A professor at the University of Illinois planted a field trial of a grass called Miscanthus that grows 14 feet tall and has been bred to be sterile, so it won't go haywire as an invasive species.
But something tells me she's not going to need a degree in sound engineering to make this boy's wiring go haywire. reckon "let me twiddle yer knobs", "plug in my scart, big boy" and "gie's a hold of yer boom pole" would all go down a treat
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