Word.ws English Dictionary

camel through the eye of a needle

camel through the eye of a needle phrase: hyperbole to illustrate something that is impossible to do or to make happen.

Phrase

camel through the eye of a needle

  1. (idiomatic) Hyperbole to illustrate something that is impossible to do or to make happen.
    • Getting George to wake up before 7 o'clock is harder than getting a camel through the eye of a needle.
    • Alluding to the exordium of his writings againſt the democrats, wherein he ſays “ It is a difficult for a party-man to be an honeſt man, as for a camel to go through the eye of a needle,” whereby he moſt emphatically declares his own diſhoneſty at the very firſt daſh of his pen.1795, John Swanwick (as "Snub"), "To WILLIAM WILCOCKS, Esquire, L. L. D. and DUke of New-York, &c.", in A Rub from Snub; or a cursory analytical epistle, page 57, quoting Wilcocks in the first...

camel through the eye of a needle meaning in Arabic

camel through the eye of a needle in Arabic

impossible
حَتَّى يَلِجَ الْجَمَلُ فِي سَمِّ الْخِيَاطِ ḥattā yalija l-jamalu fī sammi l-ḵiyāṭi

Origin of camel through the eye of a needle

With reference to the New Testament, Mark 10.25, Mat. 19.24 and Luke 18.25. See the Citations page for those texts.

Questions about camel through the eye of a needle

What does camel through the eye of a needle mean?
Camel through the eye of a needle means hyperbole to illustrate something that is impossible to do or to make happen.
What is camel through the eye of a needle in Arabic?
Camel through the eye of a needle in Arabic is حَتَّى يَلِجَ الْجَمَلُ فِي سَمِّ الْخِيَاطِ (ḥattā yalija l-jamalu fī sammi l-ḵiyāṭi). See Camel through the eye of a needle meaning in Arabic.
What part of speech is camel through the eye of a needle?
Camel through the eye of a needle is a phrase.

Words near camel through the eye of a needle in the dictionary

  1. camel meat
  2. camel rider
  3. camel riders
  4. camel spider
  5. camel spiders
  6. camel through the eye of a needle
  7. camel toe
  8. camel toes
  9. camel's hair
  10. camel's hairs
  11. camel's nose

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: camel through the eye of a needle (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-camel through the eye of a needle.ogg.

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