needle

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  Homespun clothes were seldom discarded. The many pins, needles, and thimbles found reveal that mending was a never-ending chore for the busy housewife
• WordNet 3.6
  • v needle goad or provoke,as by constant criticism "He needled her with his sarcastic remarks"
  • v needle prick with a needle
  • n needle a sharp pointed implement (usually steel)
  • n needle a slender pointer for indicating the reading on the scale of a measuring instrument
  • n needle a stylus that formerly made sound by following a groove in a phonograph record
  • n needle the leaf of a conifer
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Additional illustrations & photos:

Cleopatra's Needle

• Interesting fact: If you put a piece of scotch tape on an inflated balloon, then stick it with a small pin or needle, it won't pop.
• • Needle A hypodermic needle; a syringe fitted with a hypodermic needle, used for injecting fluids into the body.
  • Needle A slender rod or wire used in knitting; a knitting needle; also, a hooked instrument which carries the thread or twine, and by means of which knots or loops are formed in the process of netting, knitting, or crocheting.
  • Needle A small instrument of steel, sharply pointed at one end, with an eye to receive a thread, -- used in sewing.
  • Needle An injection of medicine from a hypodermic needle; a shot.
  • Needle Any slender, pointed object, like a needle, as a pointed crystal, a sharp pinnacle of rock, an obelisk, etc.
  • Needle (Bot) One of the needle-shaped secondary leaves of pine trees. See Pinus.
  • Needle See Magnetic needle, under Magnetic.
  • Needle To form in the shape of a needle; as, to needle crystals.
  • v. i Needle To form needles; to crystallize in the form of needles.
  • Needle To prod or goad (someone) into action by teasing or daring.
  • Needle To tease (a person), especially repeatedly.
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• Interesting fact: The first revolving restaurant, The Top of the Needle, was located at the 500-foot level of the 605-foot-high steel-and-glass tower at the Century 21 Exposition in Seattle, Washington. It contained 260 seats and revolved 360 degrees in an hour. The state-of-the-art restaurant was dedicated on May 22, 1961.
• • n needle A small pointed instrument, straight or curved, for carrying a thread through a woven fabric, paper, leather, felt, or other material. It consists of a slender sharp-pointed bar pierced with a hole for the thread, either at the blunt end, at the point, or in the middle. The first form is that of the common sewing-needle; the second, which is practically an awl with an eye at the point, is that of the sewing-machine needle, and the third form, which is made with a point at each end. is employed in sonic embroidery-machines. Sewing-needles are commonly made of steel; they range in size from coarse darning-needles to fine cambric-needles, and besides the distinctions of purpose and size are classified, according to the shape and character of the eye, the sharpness of the point, and the style of finish, as drill-eyed, golden-eyed, sharps, betweens, blunts, blue pointed needles, etc.
  • n needle In a wider sense, any slender pointed instrument shaped like a needle or used in a similar way: as, a knitting-, crochet-, or engraving- needle; a surgeons' needle.
  • n needle Anything resembling a needle in shape.
  • n needle Specifically— A small piece of steel pointed at both ends, and balanced centrally on a pivot, such as is used in the magnetic compass, in which it points to the magnetic poles, and in the needle-telegraph, in which its deflections, produced by electric currents, are used to give indications. See compass, magnet, dipping-needle, galvanometer, and needle-telegraph.
  • n needle A thin rod, usually made of copper, which is inserted in a drill-hole while this is being charged with powder. When the rod is withdrawn, it leaves a space in which can be inserted the tube of rush or grass, or the fuse, by which the charge is ignited. Also called a blasting-needle, or a nail
  • n needle In w eaving, a horizontal piece of wire with an eye to receive the lifting-wire in a Jacquard loom.
  • n needle A sharp pinnacle of rock; a detached pointed rock
  • n needle In chem. and mineralogy, a crystal shaped like a needle; an aciform crystal.
  • n needle In zool, a slender, sharp spicule; an aciculum.
  • n needle In bot, a needle-shaped leaf, as of a conifer: as, a pine -needle.
  • n needle In a central-fire hammerlesa gun of the variety called needle-gun, a pointed, slender, longitudinally sliding bolt or wire which, being driven forcibly forward by the spring-mechanism of the lock when the gun is tired, strikes with its front end against a fulminate or fulminating compound attached to the interior of the cartridge. The famous Prussian needle-gun is believed to be the first gun constructed to be fired on this principle. See cut under needle-gun.
  • n needle In architecture, a piece of timber laid horizontally and supported on props or shores under a wall or building, etc., which it serves to sustain temporarily while the foundation or the part beneath is being altered, repaired, or underpinned.
  • n needle A beam carrying a pulley at the end projecting from a building. The fall is worked by a crab inside the building.
  • needle To form into crystals in the shape of needles.
  • needle To perform or work with a needle.
  • needle To shoot in crystallization into the form of needles.
  • n needle plural In mining: Beams laid across a mine shaft to support a cage.
  • n needle Buntons.
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• Interesting fact: The first manager of the Seattle Space Needle, Hoge Sullivan, was acrophobic - fearful of heights. The 605 foot tall Space Needle is fastened to its foundation with 72 bolts, each 30 feet long. The Space Needle sways approximately 1 inch for every 10 mph of wind. It was built to withstand a wind velocity of 200 miles-per-hour.
• • n Needle nēd′l a small, sharp-pointed steel instrument, with an eye for a thread: anything sharp and pointed, like a pinnacle of rock, &c.: an aciform crystal: a temporary support used by builders to sustain while repairing, being a strong beam resting on props: the long, narrow, needle-like leaf of a pine-tree
  • v.t Needle to form into a shape like a needle, as crystals: to work with a needle
  • v.i Needle to become of the shape of needles, as crystals
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• Ethiopian Proverb

  

  “Evil enters like a needle and spreads like an oak tree.”
• Bible

  

  “It is easier for a camel to pass through they eye of the needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.”
• Japanese Proverb

  

  “Getting money is like digging with a needle, spending it is like water soaking into sand.”
• Kehlog Albran

  

  “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased.”

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