Needle /(nē"d'l)/

Nee·dle

Needle

A small instrument of steel, sharply pointed at one end, with an eye to receive a thread, -- used in sewing.
See Magnetic needle, under Magnetic.
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.
One of the needle-shaped secondary leaves of pine trees. See Pinus. (Bot.)
Any slender, pointed object, like a needle, as a pointed crystal, a sharp pinnacle of rock, an obelisk, etc.
A hypodermic needle; a syringe fitted with a hypodermic needle, used for injecting fluids into the body. [Informal]
An injection of medicine from a hypodermic needle; a shot.

Dipping needle: See under Dipping.
Needle bar: the reciprocating bar to which the needle of a sewing machine is attached.
Needle beam: in shoring, the horizontal cross timber which goes through the wall or a pier, and upon which the weight of the wall rests, when a building is shored up to allow of alterations in the lower part.
Needle furze: a prickly leguminous plant of Western Europe; the petty whin (Genista Anglica).
Needle gun: a firearm loaded at the breech with a cartridge carrying its own fulminate, which is exploded by driving a slender needle, or pin, into it.
Needle loom: a loom in which the weft thread is carried through the shed by a long eye-pointed needle instead of by a shuttle.
Needle ore: acicular bismuth; a sulphide of bismuth, lead, and copper occuring in acicular crystals; -- called also aikinite.
Needle shell: a sea urchin.
Needle spar: aragonite.
Needle telegraph: a telegraph in which the signals are given by the deflections of a magnetic needle to the right or to the left of a certain position.
Sea needle: the garfish.

v. t.

v. i.