meaning - "Spit and baling wire"


I just heard the phrase: "spit and baling wire". I cannot find it anywhere—can you help give me a reference, the origin...and the meaning?



Answer



It means something cobbled together or a makeshift solution. For example:



My old car is so old and broken down, it only gets by held together with spit and baling wire.



Baling wire is wire used to hold together bales of hay. Little pieces of hay often fall off bales, as baling wire cannot keep every little piece of hay together. And of course, spit doesn't really hold much of anything together. I hope that conveys the makeshift nature of the idiom.


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