Dictionary

make hay en · VERB

Pronunciation

• (Australia) audio

Meanings

1. (literally) To cut grass to turn into hay for animal feed.
2. (figuratively) To take advantage of an opportunity.
   • I suggested that this was a mistake, particularly at a time of national crisis on the railways, because it opened the way for critics of the railway to make hay - which Institute of Economic Affairs Director Richard Wellings duly did in an anti-rail article in the Daily Telegraph. 2021 January 27, Christian Wolmar, “Little-used stations”, in RAIL, issue 923, page 46:
   • Young-Earth creationism, for instance, instantly struck me as absurd when I first learned about it from a history teacher in my public junior-high school, who confidently told me that the world is only a few thousand years old. That wasn’t what my family or church taught, but Christians who subscribed to those beliefs were suddenly ascendant, and their thinking colored the country’s religious landscape. Meanwhile, the New Atheists were making hay of the fact that such faithful misapprehensions about nature were easily disproved by scientific discovery. 2026 March 26, Elizabeth Bruenig, “The Evidence That God Exists”, in The Atlantic, retrieved 26 Apr 2026:
   • The White House also sought to make political hay of the release of photos of Bill Clinton. 2025 December 19, Alan Feuer, “6 Takeaways From the First Batch of the Epstein Files”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC:

Forms

Deriveds

make hay while the sun shines

Translations (19)

fr faire les foins (to cut grass to turn into hay) · it far fieno (to cut grass to turn into hay) · de beweisen (to take advantage of an opportunity) · de profilieren (to take advantage of an opportunity) · fi tehdä heinää (to cut grass to turn into hay) · de die Gelegenheit beim Schopf ergreifen (to take advantage of an opportunity) · rm far fagn (to cut grass to turn into hay) · de Heu machen (to cut grass to turn into hay) · pl kosić trawę (to cut grass to turn into hay) · rm far cun fain (to cut grass to turn into hay) · it fare cassa (to take advantage of an opportunity) · rm fanar (to cut grass to turn into hay) · rm far fein (to cut grass to turn into hay) · fr faner (to cut grass to turn into hay) · rm far fain (to cut grass to turn into hay) · rm fer cul fain (to cut grass to turn into hay) · de hervortun (to take advantage of an opportunity) · de ausschlachten (to take advantage of an opportunity) · fo hoyggja (to cut grass to turn into hay)