hay

[hey] /heɪ/
noun
1.
grass, clover, alfalfa, etc., cut and dried for use as forage.
2.
grass mowed or intended for mowing.
3.
Slang.
  1. a small sum of money:
    Twenty dollars an hour for doing very little certainly ain't hay.
  2. money:
    A thousand dollars for a day's work is a lot of hay!
4.
Slang. marijuana.
verb (used with object)
5.
to convert (plant material) into hay.
6.
to furnish (horses, cows, etc.) with hay.
verb (used without object)
7.
to cut grass, clover, or the like, and store for use as forage.
Idioms
8.
a roll in the hay, Slang. sexual intercourse.
9.
hit the hay, Informal. to go to bed:
It got to be past midnight before anyone thought of hitting the hay.
10.
in the hay, in bed; retired, especially for the night:
By ten o'clock he's in the hay.
11.
make hay of, to scatter in disorder; render ineffectual:
The destruction of the manuscript made hay of two years of painstaking labor.
12.
make hay while the sun shines, to seize an opportunity when it presents itself:
If you want to be a millionaire, you have to make hay while the sun shines.
Also, make hay.
Origin
before 900; Middle English; Old English hēg; cognate with German Heu, Old Norse hey, Gothic hawi. See hew
Related forms
hayey, adjective
unhayed, adjective
British Dictionary definitions for hit the hay

hay1

/heɪ/
noun
1.
  1. grass, clover, etc, cut and dried as fodder
  2. (in combination): a hayfield, a hayloft
2.
(slang) hit the hay, to go to bed
3.
make hay of, to throw into confusion
4.
make hay while the sun shines, to take full advantage of an opportunity
5.
(informal) roll in the hay, sexual intercourse or heavy petting
verb
6.
to cut, dry, and store (grass, clover, etc) as fodder
7.
(transitive) to feed with hay
Word Origin
Old English hieg; related to Old Norse hey, Gothic hawi, Old Frisian hē, Old High German houwi; see hew

hay2

/heɪ/
noun
1.
a circular figure in country dancing
2.
a former country dance in which the dancers wove in and out of a circle
Word Origin
C16: of uncertain origin

Hay

/heɪ/
noun
1.
Will. 1888–1949, British music-hall comedian, who later starred in films, such as Oh, Mr Porter! (1937)
Word Origin and History for hit the hay

hay

n.

"grass mown," Old English heg (Anglian), hieg, hig (West Saxon) "grass cut or mown for fodder," from Proto-Germanic *haujam (cf. Old Norse hey, Old Frisian ha, Middle Dutch hoy, German Heu, Gothic hawi "hay"), literally "that which is cut," or "that which can be mowed," from PIE *kau- "to hew, strike" (cf. Old English heawan "to cut;" see hew). Slang phrase hit the hay (pre-1880) was originally "to sleep in a barn;" hay in the general figurative sense of "bedding" (e.g. roll in the hay) is from 1903.

Slang definitions & phrases for hit the hay

hit the hay

verb phrase

To go to bed; crash, flop, sack out ( first form 1912+, second 1943+)


hay

noun

Marijuana; herb

Related Terms

hit the hay, indian hay, that ain't hay

[Narcotics; 1940s+]


hit the hay in the Bible

properly so called, was not in use among the Hebrews; straw was used instead. They cut the grass green as it was needed. The word rendered "hay" in Prov. 27:25 means the first shoots of the grass. In Isa. 15:6 the Revised Version has correctly "grass," where the Authorized Version has "hay."

Idioms and Phrases with hit the hay

hit the hay

Also, hit the sack. Go to bed, as in I usually hit the hay after the eleven o'clock news, or I'm tired, let's hit the sack. The first colloquial expression dates from the early 1900s, the variant from about 1940.

hay

see: