needle

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A small, slender implement used for sewing or surgical suturing, made usually of polished steel and having an eye at one end through which a length of thread is passed and held.
2. n. Any one of various other implements, such as one used in knitting or crocheting.
3. n. A slender piece of jewel or steel used to transmit vibrations from the grooves of a phonograph record.
4. n. A slender pointer or indicator on a dial, scale, or similar part of a mechanical device.
5. n. A magnetic needle.
6. n. A hypodermic needle.
7. n. Informal A hypodermic injection; a shot.
8. n. Chiefly Upper Northern U.S. See dragonfly. See Regional Note at dragonfly.
9. n. A narrow stiff leaf, as those of conifers.
10. n. A fine, sharp projection, as a spine of a sea urchin or a crystal.
11. n. A sharp-pointed instrument used in engraving.
12. n. Informal A goading, provoking, or teasing remark or act.
13. v. To prick, pierce, or stitch with a small, slender, sharp-pointed implement.
14. v. Informal To goad, provoke, or tease.
15. v. Slang To increase the alcoholic content of (a beverage).
16. v. To sew or do similar work with a small, slender, sharp-pointed implement.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. 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.
2. n. 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.
3. n. Anything resembling a needle in shape.
4. n. 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.
5. n. 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
6. n. In w eaving, a horizontal piece of wire with an eye to receive the lifting-wire in a Jacquard loom.
7. n. A sharp pinnacle of rock; a detached pointed rock
8. n. In chem. and mineralogy, a crystal shaped like a needle; an aciform crystal.
9. n. In zool, a slender, sharp spicule; an aciculum.
10. n. In bot, a needle-shaped leaf, as of a conifer: as, a pine -needle.
11. n. 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.
12. n. 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.
13. n. A beam carrying a pulley at the end projecting from a building. The fall is worked by a crab inside the building.
14. To form into crystals in the shape of needles.
15. To perform or work with a needle.
16. To shoot in crystallization into the form of needles.
17. n. plural In mining: Beams laid across a mine shaft to support a cage.
18. n. Buntons.

Wiktionary

1. n. A long, thin, sharp implement usually for piercing such as sewing, or knitting, acupuncture, tattooing, body piercing, medical injections etc.
2. n. A long, thin device for indicating measurements on a dial or graph, e.g. a compass needle.
3. n. A sensor for playing phonograph records, a phonograph stylus.
4. n. A long, pointed leaf found on some conifers.
5. n. The death penalty carried out by lethal injection
6. v. To pierce with a needle, especially for sewing or acupuncture.
7. v. To tease in order to provoke; to poke fun at.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A small instrument of steel, sharply pointed at one end, with an eye to receive a thread, -- used in sewing.
2. n. See Magnetic needle, under Magnetic.
3. n. 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.
4. n. One of the needle-shaped secondary leaves of pine trees. See Pinus.
5. n. Any slender, pointed object, like a needle, as a pointed crystal, a sharp pinnacle of rock, an obelisk, etc.
6. n. A hypodermic needle; a syringe fitted with a hypodermic needle, used for injecting fluids into the body.
7. n. An injection of medicine from a hypodermic needle; a shot.
8. v. To form in the shape of a needle.
9. v. To tease (a person), especially repeatedly.
10. v. To prod or goad (someone) into action by teasing or daring.
11. v. To form needles; to crystallize in the form of needles.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the leaf of a conifer
2. n. a sharp pointed implement (usually steel)
3. n. a stylus that formerly made sound by following a groove in a phonograph record
4. v. prick with a needle
5. n. a slender pointer for indicating the reading on the scale of a measuring instrument
6. v. goad or provoke,as by constant criticism