Word.ws English Dictionary

haystack

/ˈheɪˌstæk/

haystack noun: a mound, pile, or stack of stored hay.

haystack: a mound, pile, or stack of stored hay
Image: Paulnasca, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

haystack (plural haystacks)

  1. A mound, pile, or stack of stored hay.
    Synonyms:
    hayrick, wynd
  2. (canoeing) A standing wave in a rapid.
  3. The text string within which another string is searched for. (see: needle in a haystack)
    • Both of these functions will look through the haystack for the specified needle and, if they find it, will return the portion of the string from the beginning of the needle to the end of the haystack.2010, Peter MacIntyre, PHP: The Good Parts, page 39
  4. (broadly) Any place or collection of items through which one searches for something that is rare and hard to find.
    • But the point of confining the Kansas City gun experiment to the worst parts of the worst neighborhoods was to make the haystack just a little smaller, and to make the inevitable trade-off between fighting crime and harassing innocent people just a little more manageable.2019, Malcolm Gladwell, Talking to Strangers, page 339
  5. A dish composed of a starchy food (rice, tortillas, crackers, etc.) topped by a protein (beans, cheese, meat, etc.) in combination with fresh vegetables, assembled on the plate by the diner.

Proper noun capitalized: Haystack

Haystack

  1. A locality in the Kyogle council area, north eastern New South Wales, Australia.

haystack meaning in Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Tagalog

haystack in Tamil

haystack
குந்தம் kuntam, கோட்டைப்போர் kōṭṭaippōr

haystack in Malayalam

a mound, pile, or stack of stored hay
തുറു tuṟu

haystack in Kannada

ಕುತ್ತರಿ

haystack in Tagalog

a mound, pile, or stack of stored hay
mandala ng dayami

Examples of haystack in a sentence

  • Our new process for extracting needles from haystacks is extremely slick.
  • You'll never find the paper you need on her desk. You're looking for a needle in a haystack.
  • The tractor drew up alongside the haystack.

All 11 example sentences with haystack

Synonyms of haystack

Forms of haystack

pluralhaystacks

Plural of haystack: haystacks

Origin of haystack

From Middle English haystak, haystake, hey stak, equivalent to hay + stack.

Words formed from haystack

Phrases with haystack

Questions about haystack

What does haystack mean?
Haystack means a mound, pile, or stack of stored hay.
What is haystack in Tamil?
Haystack in Tamil is குந்தம் (kuntam), கோட்டைப்போர் (kōṭṭaippōr). See Haystack meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is haystack?
Haystack can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce haystack?
Haystack is pronounced /ˈheɪˌstæk/.
What is the plural of haystack?
The plural of haystack is haystacks.

Words near haystack in the dictionary

  1. Haysi
  2. Hayslett
  3. Haysletts
  4. Hayslip
  5. Hayslips
  6. haystack
  7. haystacks
  8. haystalk
  9. haystalks
  10. Hayter
  11. Hayters

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: haystack (page history and authors); Haystack (page history and authors); குந்தம் (Tamil) (page history and authors); haystack (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-haystack.ogg.

Cite this entry: “haystack.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/haystack. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.