[C]
for sewing
1 a small thin piece of steel that you use for sewing, with a point at one end and a hole for the thread at the other:
a needle and thread * the eye (= hole) of a needle
seealsoPINSANDNEEDLES
for knitting
2 a long thin piece of plastic or metal with a point at one end that you use for knitting. You usually use two together:
knitting needles
for drugs
3 a very thin, pointed piece of steel used on the end of a SYRINGE for putting a drug into sb's body, or for taking blood out of it:
a hypodermic needle
on instrument
4 a thin piece of metal on a scientific instrument that moves to point to the correct measurement or direction:
The compass needle was pointing north.
on pine tree
5 [usuallypl.] the thin, hard pointed leaf of a PINE tree
on record player
6 the very small pointed piece of metal that touches a record that is being played in order to produce the sound
SYNSTYLUS
IDIOMS
a needle in a haystack a thing that is almost impossible to find:
Searching for one man in this city is like looking for a needle in a haystack.
verb [VN] (informal) to deliberately annoy sb, especially by criticizing them continuously:
Don't let her needle you. * He knew Jo was trying to needle him into losing his temper.
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for needle is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is needle a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, needle is tagged as noun.
Does needle appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — needle appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
