Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The mowing, curing, and housing of the haycrops; haying.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The operation or work of cutting grass and curing it for hay.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The cutting of grass and subsequently curing it to make hay as fodder for animals

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun cutting grass and curing it to make hay
  • noun taking full advantage of an opportunity while it lasts

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

hay +‎ making

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Examples

  • Just as in corn districts, machinery has not reduced the actual number of hands employed, but has made the work come in spells or rushes; so in the meadows the haymaking is shortened.

    Hodge and His Masters Richard Jefferies 1867

  • "Yes, it is very nice, very nice indeed; in fact, I arrived just in time for the haymaking, I must tell you, and in the Ukraine the haymaking is the most poetical moment of the year.

    The Party 1917

  • "Yes, it is very nice, very nice indeed; in fact, I arrived just in time for the haymaking, I must tell you, and in the Ukraine the haymaking is the most poetical moment of the year.

    The Party Anton Pavlovich Chekhov 1882

  • "Grass might start growing in a week or two, but there will be no haymaking."

    Food Prices Posing Risk to Poor Nations Neena Rai 2011

  • "Grass might start growing in a week or two, but there will be no haymaking."

    Food Prices Posing Risk to Poor Nations Neena Rai 2011

  • And when haymaking finally comes around – traditionally when the dry seed capsules in the yellow hay rattle begin to rattle – the mowers leave windrows of drying grasses that map the contours of the field.

    Make hay meadow photos while the sun shines | Phil Gates 2011

  • It certainly "smarted", but on the whole the birth was so straightforward I went around, for ages afterwards, droning smugly about how I was "of good working-class stock – hailing from an era when women would chuck one out, then carry on with the haymaking".

    Don't believe the propaganda about births at home | Barbara Ellen 2011

  • Meanwhile, every lord prepares his men and chooses his side, and Jasper and Edmund wait only till the end of haymaking, and then muster the men with their scythes and bill hooks and march out to find William Herbert and teach him who commands Wales.

    The Red Queen Philippa Gregory 2010

  • He sings love songs and haymaking songs in a bright tenor voice, and the men who ride with us, to protect us from the armed bands who are everywhere in England these days, join in with him and sing too.

    The Red Queen Philippa Gregory 2010

  • Sometimes, haymaking continued late into the night.

    The Dirty Life Kristin Kimball 2010

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