Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a swinging, roundhouse punch, which counts more on energy and ire than on skill and direction; thus hay-making adj.

1903		A. Binstead Pitcher in Paradise 131: The big man [...] handed out a regular haymaker.
1912		Day Book (Chicago) 12 Mar. 29/2: The gong for the third round rang, and [...] Clarence Cassidy started a haymaker.
1914		Bulletin (Sydney) 29 Oct. 26/4: That he would have smashed Christie had he been able to land any one of his wild haymakers goes without question; but nobody but a cripple or an idiot would wait for his tremendous wallops to arrive.
1916		R. Lardner ‘Champion’ in Coll. Short Stories (1941) 115: The fans were willing to pay the price to see Midge’s hay-making left.
1922		E.E. Cummings Enormous Room (1928) 256: The Young Pole backing and filling and slipping in the deep ooze under the strenuous jolts, jabs and even haymakers of The Fighting Sheeney.
1929		Mail (Adelaide) 23 Mar. 6/2: Smith kept evading most of his haymakers cleverly.
1934		R. Sale ‘A Nose for News’ in Goulart (1967) 197: Surveying Lyons’ face for the exact spot where I was going to hang a haymaker very shortly.
1947		Life 13 Oct. 66: The defender is allowed to follow this tactic with a haymaker but cannot follow up his advantage [DA].
1949		A.B. Hollingshead Elmtown’s Youth (1975) 304: The class V boy ‘swung a haymaker’ that missed.
1953		‘John Eagle’ Hoodlums (2021) 27: A half-loop haymaker [...] jarring and lifting the man over the bench.
1955		D. Niland Shiralee 55: A haymaker caught him on the side of the head.
1965		W. Dick Bunch of Ratbags 90: I held his head down and swung a terrific haymaker from the floor with my right fist and smashed it into his face.
1978		R. Caron Go-Boy! 53: We observed the Dick [...] poleaxe him with a looping haymaker.
1985		A. Payne ‘Minder on the Orient Express’ Minder [TV script] 141: Arthur throws a terrible hay-maker at him which misses by a mile.
1991		L. Bing Do or Die (1992) 179: He throws a wild haymaker; she sidesteps neatly.
2001		K. Sampson Outlaws (ms.) 5: He starts throwing big mad fucking haymakers and kicking out.
2006		B. Matthews Intractable [ebook] I delivered the best haymaker I have ever let loose in my life – a blow that even surprised me.
2011		J.J. Connolly Viva La Madness 343: He’s delivering old-fashioned haymakers with his free hand.
2012		L. Jose ‘Underhooks’ in Crime Factory: Hard Labour [ebook] A haymaker. Too ambitious [...] Sammy easily weaved around it.
2013		T. Robinson Hard Bounce [ebook] I swung a haymaker into the open driver’s side window. My fist cracked Mullet right in the back of his hairdo.
2018		‘Aidan Truhen’ Price You Pay 47: [H]uge slow Oliver swings haymakers.
2020		G. Armstrong Young Team 19: Danny hits him a fuckin haymaker.
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 86: He was big and lean. He threw haymakers.

2. in fig. use, a ‘knockout blow’.

1921		Labour Jrnl (Everett, Wash.) 28 Oct. 1/1: When an accounting finally had to be made to the Council, ‘Paddy’ then came to bat and it was then that ‘Paddy’ put over the haymaker on old Annanais. He explained to the Council [etc.].
1953		A.J. Liebling Honest Rainmaker (1991) 47: He walked right into a haymaker [...] he overweened himself.
1960		Wodehouse Jeeves in the Offing 7: I was tottering under this blow when the old relative administered another, and it was a haymaker.