needle
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A long, thin, sharp implement usually for piercing.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
needuhlSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈnidəl
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
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.
Any slender, pointed object resembling a needle, such as a pointed crystal, a sharp pinnacle of rock, an obelisk, etc.
A sharp pointed implement (usually steel)
The leaf of a conifer
“The long, green needle of the pine tree pricked my finger.”
informal
A sensor for playing phonograph records, a phonograph stylus.
informal
A stylus that formerly made sound by following a groove in a phonograph record
verb
transitive
To tease in order to provoke; to poke fun at.
Prick with a needle
To pierce with a needle, especially for sewing or acupuncture.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: 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.
Used this way, needle is a specialist word that can pull warm or cold depending on the sentence. This is a clinical use: it belongs to medical description, where it is factual rather than emotive.
- Emotional tone
- Mixed
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Gentle
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Direct, sometimes tactless
- Usage feel
- Clinical and detached
Where it naturally appears
- Medicine/healthcare
- Science
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use needle
- “He needled her with his sarcastic remarks.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Shrub with pungent rigid needle-shaped leaves and white flowers.
A disease of conifers causing the needles to fall.
Prickly yellow-flowered shrub of the moors of New England and Europe.
Yucca with long stiff leaves having filamentlike appendages.
Fine-leaved aquatic spike rush.
Fine-leaved aquatic spike rush.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
Lace worked with a needle in a buttonhole stitch on a paper pattern.
A creation created or assembled by needle and thread.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- syringenoun
- stitchnoun
- acupuncturenoun
- crochetverb
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.