Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use needle in a sentence

40 example sentences · noun, verb

Needle means 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. Example: “The seamstress threaded the needle to sew on a button.”

Examples of needle by meaning

nounA long, thin, sharp implement usually for piercing as in sewing, embroidery, acupuncture, tattooing, body piercing...

  • The seamstress threaded the needle to sew on a button.

nounA fine measurement indicator on a dial or graph.

  • a compass needle
  • The needle on the fuel gauge pointed to empty.

nounA sensor for playing phonograph records, a phonograph stylus.

  • Ziggy bought some diamond needles for his hi-fi phonograph.

nounA needle-like leaf found on some conifers.

  • Disgusted with himself at such cowardice, he spat a needle from his mouth.1994, Stephen Fry, chapter 2, in The Hippopotamus

nounA text string that is searched for within another string. (see: needle in a haystack).

  • Both of these functions will look through the haystack for the specified needle and, if they find it, will return the portion of the string from the beginning of the needle to the end of the haystack.2010, Peter MacIntyre, PHP: The Good Parts, page 39

verbTo pierce with a needle, especially for sewing or acupuncture.

  • Possibly the greatest effect is achieved in the hand by needling the thumb, the index finger and the region of the 1st and 2nd metacarpal.2000, Felix Mann, Reinventing Acupuncture, page 109

verbTo tease in order to provoke; to poke fun at.

  • Billy needled his sister incessantly about her pimples.
  • FRED: Well, I teased her to some extent, or I needled her, not teased her.1984, Leopold Caligor, Philip M. Bromberg, James D. Meltzer, Clinical Perspectives on the Supervision of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy...
  • To needle Lady Leviathan, Hel has convinced her husband to agree to the heartful offer.2015, Carl Gleba, “Megaverse in Flames”, in Rifts World Book 35

verbTo form, or be formed, in the shape of a needle.

  • to needle crystals

More sentences with needle

  • John hardly felt the needle prick his arm when the adept nurse drew blood.From the entry prick
  • He has an extreme aversion to needles, and avoids visiting the doctor.From the entry extreme
  • The old vinyl record made a crusty crackling sound as the needle hit it.From the entry crusty
  • Our new process for extracting needles from haystacks is extremely slick.From the entry slick
  • The Christmas tree fell in a flutter of ornaments and pine needles.From the entry flutter
  • The needle on this gauge was in a flutter, which makes it hard to read the result.From the entry flutter
  • The sewing workbox held fabric, needles, notions, patterns, and other supplies.From the entry workbox
  • Acidic cloudwater is believed to cause needle injury and to decrease winter hardiness in conifers.From the entry cloudwater
  • The head of the compass needle is pointing due north.From the entry head
  • My arm fell asleep. You know, like pins and needles.From the entry asleep
  • You'll never find the paper you need on her desk. You're looking for a needle in a haystack.From the entry needle in a haystack
  • Hedgehogs are needled creatures, just like porcupines.From the entry needled
  • Getting George to wake up before 7 o'clock is harder than getting a camel through the eye of a needle.From the entry camel through the eye of a needle
  • He rethreaded the needle and resumed sewing.From the entry rethread
  • The needle punctured the balloon instantly.From the entry puncture
  • In this picture he is performing his famous Yogi trick of swallowing a package of needles and some thread and extracting the needles threaded.From the entry yogi
  • Life is hard and then you die; stick a needle in your eye!2025 December 9, Adam Mastroianni, “The drug that taught me how much I should suffer; or: grindset and bedrot”, in Experimental History…. From the entry active ingredient
  • She got the needle in the correct vein on the second stick.2024, Hope Is All I Have: Defying the Odds of Cancer, William Douglas. From the entry stick
  • “Any one particular training source, it doesn’t move the needle for us that much,” he said.2024 May 4, Alex Hern, Dan Milmo, quoting Sam Altman, “Danger and opportunity for news industry as AI woos it for vital human-written…. From the entry move the needle
  • He withdrew the needle and handed the syringe over to someone who looked even younger.2024, Kurt Ellis, chapter 19, in Catriona Ross, editor, Deadly Benefits, Penguim Random House South Africa, →ISBN. From the entry bluetoothing
  • You know that for tattooing, we are supposed to use disposable needles, right?2022, Hunter Ng, As Coarse as Emporium, Jettison Books, →ISBN. From the entry lah
  • Use a size 24 needle for most aidas, and a size 26 for evenweaves and linens.2021, Cross Stitcher, April 2021 edition, page 81. From the entry aida
  • Authorities are offering incentives to those slow to accept the needle.2021 February 26, “What life is like in countries where Covid-19 vaccination is increasingly a success”, in CNN. From the entry refusenik
  • Ma was taking a sterilized needle to a whitehead on my chin.2020, Avni Doshi, Burnt Sugar, Hamish Hamilton, page 151. From the entry whitehead
  • Early on, the film even blunders into outright hackwork, employing laughably literal-minded needle drops.2019 July 3, Mike D'Angelo, “Oscar Isaac and Ben Affleck blunder through a heavy heist in J.C. Chandor’s Triple Frontier”, in AV Club…. From the entry hackwork
  • Pine needles cycloned wildly as Jan swung her car into the Institute's parking lot.2018, Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Death Scene, page 2. From the entry cyclone
  • However, compared to Masson pine needles, the waxy of camphor leaves showed thinner and more dasyphyllous.2018 August, Jun Zhou, Zhangwei Wang, Xiaoshan Zhang, “Deposition and Fate of Mercury in Litterfall, Litter, and Soil in Coniferous and…. From the entry dasyphyllous
  • A bodkin, a large blunt needle, was thrust through the tongue for the second offence.2017, Barry R. Harker, It’s Sunday in America, →ISBN. From the entry bodkin
  • "I'm not scared of needles, but I certainly don’t like them," she says.2017 April 11, Paul Ewart, quoting Christa Billich, “Fifteen Years on, what Long-term Botox Use Looks Like”, in News.com.au, archived from…. From the entry champagne

Meaning of needle

  1. 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.
  2. noun Any slender, pointed object resembling a needle, such as a pointed crystal, a sharp pinnacle of rock, an obelisk, etc.
  3. noun A fine measurement indicator on a dial or graph.

Full definition of needle

Questions about needle in a sentence

How do you use needle in a sentence?
Needle is used as a noun and verb. For example: “The seamstress threaded the needle to sew on a button.”
What is a short sentence with needle?
“a compass needle”
What does needle mean?
Needle means 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.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: needle (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use needle in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/needle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.