Skip to main content
haystack

haystack

43 1.6
A large pile of dry grass left outside to feed animals
  • noun
  • /ˈheɪˌstæk/
translation icon : pajar
  • The men slept outside, disposed in various haystacks, wagon beds, and patches of bracken.
  • needle in a haystack

So that meant that the the haystack was getting bigger.

Autoplay Next

Examples

  • The dog ran away toward the haystack, scared by the beams of the flashlights scraping its body.

    Fiction book (1994)
  • Tom, I want you to go down by the haystack.

  • So that meant that the the haystack was getting bigger.

  • It's in a good tight shed, and it has a canvas haystack cover over it.

    Fiction book (1994)
  • That's rather a large haystack to hunt through for what must be a very small needle.

    Fiction book (1996)
  • They can hide in haystacks for a few hours.

  • At the MIT Haystack Observatory, students are given a new way to look at the universe.

    Academic text (2004)
  • The children played hide and seek around the large haystack in the farmer's field.

  • After the harvest, the farmer stacked the remaining hay into a haystack for the winter.

  • The old barn was filled with a haystack that provided a place for animals to stay warm.

Synonyms

rick
vshaystack
  • Archaic
1 9.6

A stack of hay or straw kept outdoors

refers specifically to an outdoor pile used for storing one type of dried fodder
hayrick
vshaystack
9.9

A large stack of hay piled outside to stay dry

is the general term for the same outdoor storage pile

Idioms

15 6.1

A thing very hard to find among many similar things

To try to find something that is hidden among many things

How Big

barn
363 1.0
hayrick
9.9
haystack
43 1.6
haycock
9.9

Surface Forms

haystack singular
haystacks plural

Morphology

haystack = hay + stack (transparent) = hay + stack

Direct, literal compound of 'hay' + 'stack' meaning a pile of hay, easily derivable by learners.

Etymology

Haystack joins the simple words hay ('dried grass') and stack ('pile'). It literally means a pile of hay on a farm, and that clear picture is exactly why the word still means the same thing today.