haystack

Etymology

It is formed from English hay + stack,^[2][3][4] first as Middle English haystak, from hey and stak.^[5] Stratmann lists the Middle English forms hei-stak and haistak.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

A large pile of hay built in the open air, with a pointed or ridged top: before 1500, in a vocabulary printed by Wright and Wülcker.^[2] Etymonline dates the word to the mid-15th century,^[3] Merriam-Webster Unabridged to the 15th century,^[5] and Dictionary.com to 1425–75.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The haystack soon became the proverbial place where a needle is impossible to find: the OED records a needle in a haystack and its variants from about 1530.^[2] An older alternative in the phrase, current from the 16th to the 18th century, was a bottle of hay, a bundle of hay.^[7][8] From 1855 the word was used attributively, as in haystack roof and haystack boiler, an old tall steam boiler shaped somewhat like a haystack.^[9] In 20th-century Cockney rhyming slang haystack stands for the back, and going round the haystack was a euphemism for going to the lavatory.^[10][11]

Timeline

• before 1500 – a stack of hay built in the open air.^[2] Etymonline dates the word to the mid-15th century.^[3]
• c. 1530 – a needle in a haystack and variants, something almost impossible to find.^[2]
• 1855 – attributive, as in haystack roof, haystack boiler.^[9]
• 1960 – rhyming slang, the back.^[10][11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A large stack of hay built outdoors, usually with a pointed or ridged top; a hayrick.^[5][2][4]
2. look for a needle in a haystack: to search for something that is almost impossible to find.^[8][5][2]
3. (rhyming slang) The back.^[10][11]

Related words

• hay
• stack
• hayrick
• haycock

Usage notes

In American whitewater boating a haystack is a large dome-shaped standing wave.^[12]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Stratmann, Francis Henry (1891), A Middle-English Dictionary, revised by Henry Bradley, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Flavell, Linda; Flavell, Roger (1992), Dictionary of Idioms and their Origins, London: Kyle Cathie
8. ^ a b The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers
9. ^ a b Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
11. ^ a b c Dalzell, Tom; Victor, Terry, eds. (2013), The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 2nd ed., London: Routledge
12. ^ Cassidy, Frederic G. & Joan Houston Hall (eds.) (1985–2002), Dictionary of American Regional English, vols I–IV, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press