What’s a “haymaker” punch, and why that name? Thanks. :smack: <–not a haymaker.
Because the punch emulates the action of the farm machine? (I don’t know what the machine looks like, so I don’t know if a “haymaker” resembles the action of a haymaker.)
Ok, that was about as close to an non-answer as you can get. 
Can you tell me what a haymaker punch looks like?
Not positive and don’t have access to an OED to find out, but I’m pretty sure ‘haymaker’ predates mechanical haying machinery. Anyways, neither mowers and rakes (early haying machines) nor swathers and balers (modern machines) have any parts that swing about wildly and might smack you upside the head.
My own guess would be that it’s a reference to the strength of someone who’s been swinging a scythe all day for several weeks, or to the strength required to swing one. But that’s just a guess.
It’s not any particular type of punch, just a really powerful one.
Here is a WAG- assume that the haymaker is thrown in an effort to knock your opponent out. Going to sleep = ‘hit the hay’ so haymaker = putting somebody to sleep.
I didn’t say it was good.
The online etymology dictionary agrees with the scythe, which makes sense anyway:
Our newest moderator may be along shortly with more exhaustive cites, I suppose.
Yeah, that’s it. It’s the wide swinging motion of the punch, which is like the swinging pitching motion for making hay.
It might not be a good answer but it’s the RIGHT one.
A good shot to the point of the chin puts your opponent in “The HAY”-----for at least a count of ten.
And I can also tell you that there are a lot of people in the world who,apparently, have never held a snath in their hands.
What’s a snath?—it’s what you’re holding on to when you use a scythe.
Ol’ EZ
It’s cited in 1902 in a cartoon showing a boxer and his punch. But most of the cites don’t describe it as much more than a powerful punch, quite often a knockout punch. The same kind of powerful swinging motion necessary when using a scythe. IMHO, not from “hitting the hay” although both expressions seem to have started within the same decade.
A 1907 boxing magazine listed “haymaker–a swinging blow”
I’m not a fighter or a farmer, but I always thought that a haymaker was an inferior punch that circled in from the side and was easy to block or evade, as opposed to a more professional punch, which would come in straighter and faster.
Correct me please if this is way off base.
The haymaker can be a jab,a roundhouse, a cross, an uppercut, a hook, a bolo—or maybe just a lucky shot with no identity as to form.
If it wasn’t against the rules it could also a headbutt,a backhand or an elbow shot.
What ever it is that sends him to dreamsville IS THE haymaker for the moment
EZ
That’s my understanding as well. Not a weak punch, but easy to advoid by a good boxer. You lean to the side, maybe with your fist waist level, swing both your body and arm (fist) up to connect with someone’s head (hopefully) in kind of round, half circle manner like swning a scythe.
Historically, the haymaker was just what Ezstrete offered in the last post. Meanings change over time. I, too, thought for much of my life that it was a big-old looping swing that should be able to be avoided, but that was never the historical meaning in the first half of the century.
Thanks. What’s a bolo? In some martial arts I study they call a fist coming down like a hammer fist, but with swinging the ful arm and not so much just with the elbow but the shoulder, more like the dropping motion of closing a heavy sliding door downward. If that gives you a picture. Is that what you call bolo?
The Bolo was a punch wich was the trademark of a pug named Kid Gavalan,back in the late 40s.
Assuming a typical pose —left hand extended—right at the ready,near the tight breast--------the right punch was thrown with a “wind-up” action.
I never did see what the advantage was in that punch-it did delay impact by a fractional part of a second.
BUT-----by then the KID usully had his man halfway to queer street.
It did,however, add a spectacular moment to the bout.
Ol’ ez
[Not too sure about that date-might have been early 50s]
P.G. Wodehouse, who boxed for his public school (i.e., Brit. public school=private prep school) put some interesting boxing slang into Psmith Journalist, in the character of Kid Brady, whose desire was to fight anybody in the world at 122 pounds. At one point, recounting an earlier bout, he says, “…and I picks up a sleep-producer from the floor and hands it to him…”. I think he also used the word haymaker in this novel, which appeared in 1914.
Absolute and total WAG.
The process of gathering up the mowed hay is called “making hay.” In the days before hay loaders and balers the process involved picking of forksfull (forkfulls?) of hay from the windrows and throwing them into the hayrack. Filling the rack by hand one forkfull at a time was hard work and went on all day long. When the rack got full lifting the last few forksfull required a lot of muscle and those haymkers who could do it had really strong arms.
Hence, a powerful punch was one that could be delivered by a haymaker.
End of absolute and total WAG
Anyone remember the Real McCoys TV series?
They had the “McCoy Mule Punch”
You started the left arm in a windmill motion like you were winding up for a haymaker punch, then punched them in the face with the right arm.
I guess you have to see it to appreciate it.
E3
One would also suspect that, for the best results, this “haymaker” is a punch that should be thrown only during daylight hours.