FluentPlex

needle

/ˈniː.dəl/ verb C2
  1. To pierce with a needle, especially for sewing or acupuncture.
  2. To tease in order to provoke; to poke fun at. (transitive) · Billy needled his sister incessantly about her pimples.
  3. To form, or be formed, in the shape of a needle. · to needle crystals

He/she/it needles · Past needled · Past participle needled · -ing form needling

+ Save to review

Verb forms

Base form
needle
He/she/it
needles
Past
needled
Past participle
needled
-ing form
needling

From the library

So Dorothy took a needle and thread, and as fast as Oz cut the strips of silk into proper shape the girl sewed them neatly together.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, p. 117 · B2
“With this needle,” said the abbé, as, opening his ragged vestments, he showed Dantès a long, sharp fish-bone, with a small perforated eye for the thread, a small portion of which still remained in it.
The Count of Monte Cristo, p. 159 · C1
Without giving himself time to reconsider his decision, and, indeed, that he might not allow his thoughts to be distracted from his desperate resolution, he bent over the appalling shroud, opened it with the knife which Faria had made, drew the corpse from the sack, and bore it along the tunnel to his own chamber, laid it on his couch, tied around its head the rag he wore at night around his own, covered it with his counterpane, once again kissed the ice-cold brow, and tried vainly to close the resisting eyes, which glared horribly, turned the head towards the wall, so that the jailer might, when he brought the evening meal, believe that he was asleep, as was his frequent custom; entered the tunnel again, drew the bed against the wall, returned to the other cell, took from the hiding-place the needle and thread, flung off his rags, that they might feel only naked flesh beneath the coarse canvas, and getting inside the sack, placed himself in the posture in which the dead body had been laid, and sewed up the mouth of the sack from the inside.
The Count of Monte Cristo, p. 215 · C1
You would expose the self-love of another with a hatchet, but you shrink if your own is attacked with a needle.”
The Count of Monte Cristo, p. 705 · C1

Other matches

Learn needle in real texts

With a free account, hover any word in the library for its meaning, hear it read aloud, save words for review timed to your memory, and see how much of each book you already know.

Create free account
Words, meanings, pronunciations and translations from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); how common each word is from wordfreq. Made into this dictionary by FluentPlex.