Word.ws English Dictionary

on pins and needles

on pins and needles prepositional phrase: feeling sharp anticipation or anxiety; in a state of suspense.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (idiomatic) Feeling sharp anticipation or anxiety; in a state of suspense.
    • Merlin hesitated a moment or two, and I was on pins and needles during that little while.1889, Mark Twain, chapter 6, in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
    • I was on pins and needles of expectation and curiosity.1923, Hugh Lofting, chapter 1, in The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle, part 5
    Synonyms:
    on tenterhooks

on pins and needles meaning in Bengali and Vietnamese

on pins and needles in Bengali

তীব্র প্রতীক্ষা, উদ্বেগ অনুভব করা, উৎকণ্ঠার মধ্যে থাকা

on pins and needles in Vietnamese

feeling sharp anticipation or anxiety
nhấp nhổm

Synonyms of on pins and needles

Questions about on pins and needles

What does on pins and needles mean?
On pins and needles means feeling sharp anticipation or anxiety; in a state of suspense.
What is on pins and needles in Bengali?
On pins and needles in Bengali is তীব্র প্রতীক্ষা, উদ্বেগ অনুভব করা, উৎকণ্ঠার মধ্যে থাকা. See On pins and needles meaning in Bengali.
What part of speech is on pins and needles?
On pins and needles is a prepositional phrase.

Words near on pins and needles in the dictionary

  1. on order
  2. on pain of
  3. on paper
  4. on par
  5. on parade
  6. on pins and needles
  7. on point
  8. on principle
  9. on pump
  10. on purpose
  11. on rails

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: on pins and needles (page history and authors); on pins and needles (Bengali Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-on pins and needles.ogg.

Cite this entry: “on pins and needles.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/on_pins_and_needles. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.