Haywire

Noun

 * 1) Wire used to bind bales of hay.

Synonyms

 * baler twine

Adjective

 * 1) Roughly-made, unsophisticated, decrepit (from the use of haywire for temporary repairs).
 * 2) Behaving erratically or uncontrollably, especially of a machine or mechanical process; usually used with the verb "go".
 * 3) * It was working fine until it went haywire and wouldn't stop printing blank sheets.
 * 4) * Those kids go haywire when they don't get what they want.

Related terms

 * come unglued
 * tearing up Jack
 * lose one's cool
 * blow up
 * go bonkers

Thesaurus
amiss, askew, awry, balmy, bananas, barmy, bats, batty, beany, bonkers, broken, buggy, bughouse, bugs, cockeyed, convulsed, crackers, cuckoo, daffy, deranged, dippy, disarranged, discomfited, discomposed, disconcerted, dislocated, disordered, disorderly, disorganized, disturbed, dotty, flaky, flipped, freaked-out, fruitcakey, fruity, gaga, goofy, in disorder, in disrepair, inoperative, just plain nuts, kooky, loony, loopy, misplaced, nuts, nutty, off the hinges, off the track, off the wall, on the blink, on the fritz, out of commission, out of condition, out of gear, out of joint, out of kelter, out of kilter, out of order, out of place, out of repair, out of tune, out of whack, perturbed, potty, roily, round the bend, screwball, screwballs, screwy, shuffled, slaphappy, turbid, turbulent, unsettled, upset, wacky

Etymology
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.

Noun

 * Finnish: paalauslanka


 * Russian: вязальная проволока