needle
A long, thin, sharp implement usually for piercing as in sewing, embroidery, acupuncture, tattooing, body piercing, medical injections, sutures, etc; or a blunt but otherwise similar implement used for forming loops or knots in crafts such as darning, knitting, tatting, etc.
Example
“The seamstress threaded the needle to sew on a button.”
Other meanings
Any slender, pointed object resembling a needle, such as a pointed crystal, a sharp pinnacle of rock, an obelisk, etc.
A fine measurement indicator on a dial or graph.
“a compass needle”
A kind of
- implement
Kinds of needle
- dry point
- packing needle
- sewing needle
Example sentences
Word history
From Old English "nǣdl".
Where this comes from
This definition is adapted from “needle” on Wiktionary, by its contributors; example sentences are from Tatoeba, credited to their authors above; related-word lists use Open English WordNet (CC BY 4.0, based on Princeton WordNet), published under CC BY-SA 4.0. This page is published under the same licence.