Plural of haywire; wires used to bind bales of hay, or broken/tangled wires (giving rise to the phrase 'go haywire' meaning to malfunction).
From 'hay' and 'wire'; became popularized in the 1900s when baling machinery replaced hand-binding, creating the phrase 'go haywire' for malfunctioning equipment.
The phrase 'go haywire' comes from early farm machinery where if baling wires tangled or jammed, the whole machine would go crazy—and it became slang for any breakdown!
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