needle

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A slender, pointed implement used for sewing or surgical suturing, made usually of polished steel and having an eye at one end through which a length of thread is passed and held.
• noun Any of various similar implements, such as a fine sharp-pointed instrument used in acupuncture or a pointed shaft used in knitting, crocheting, or lace making.
• noun A sharp-pointed instrument used in engraving.
• noun A slender piece of jewel or steel used to transmit vibrations from the grooves of a phonograph record.
• noun A slender pointer or indicator on a dial, scale, or similar part of a mechanical device.
• noun A magnetic needle.
• noun A hypodermic needle.
• noun Informal A hypodermic injection; a shot.
• noun A narrow stiff leaf, as of a pine or fir.
• noun A fine, sharp projection, as a spine of a sea urchin or a crystal.
• noun A tall narrow rock formation.
• noun An obelisk.
• noun Informal A goading, provoking, or teasing remark or act.
• intransitive verb To prick, pierce, or stitch with a needle.
• intransitive verb Informal To goad, provoke, or tease.
• intransitive verb To sew or do similar work with a needle.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun A small pointed instrument, straight or curved, for carrying a thread through a woven fabric, paper, leather, felt, or other material.
• noun In a wider sense, any slender pointed instrument shaped like a needle or used in a similar way: as, a knitting-, crochet-, or engraving- needle; a surgeons' needle.
• noun Anything resembling a needle in shape.
• noun Specifically— A small piece of steel pointed at both ends, and balanced centrally on a pivot, such as is used in the magnetic compass, in which it points to the magnetic poles, and in the needle-telegraph, in which its deflections, produced by electric currents, are used to give indications. See compass, magnet, dipping-needle, galvanometer, and needle-telegraph.
• noun A thin rod, usually made of copper, which is inserted in a drill-hole while this is being charged with powder. When the rod is withdrawn, it leaves a space in which can be inserted the tube of rush or grass, or the fuse, by which the charge is ignited. Also called a blasting-needle, or a nail
• noun In w eaving, a horizontal piece of wire with an eye to receive the lifting-wire in a Jacquard loom.
• noun A sharp pinnacle of rock; a detached pointed rock
• noun In chem. and mineralogy, a crystal shaped like a needle; an aciform crystal.
• noun In zool, a slender, sharp spicule; an aciculum.
• noun In bot, a needle-shaped leaf, as of a conifer: as, a pine -needle.
• noun In a central-fire hammerlesa gun of the variety called needle-gun, a pointed, slender, longitudinally sliding bolt or wire which, being driven forcibly forward by the spring-mechanism of the lock when the gun is tired, strikes with its front end against a fulminate or fulminating compound attached to the interior of the cartridge. The famous Prussian needle-gun is believed to be the first gun constructed to be fired on this principle. See cut under needle-gun.
• noun In architecture, a piece of timber laid horizontally and supported on props or shores under a wall or building, etc., which it serves to sustain temporarily while the foundation or the part beneath is being altered, repaired, or underpinned.
• noun A beam carrying a pulley at the end projecting from a building. The fall is worked by a crab inside the building.
• To form into crystals in the shape of needles.
• To perform or work with a needle.
• To shoot in crystallization into the form of needles.
• noun plural In mining: Beams laid across a mine shaft to support a cage.
• noun Buntons.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• transitive verb To form in the shape of a needle.
• transitive verb To tease (a person), especially repeatedly.
• transitive verb To prod or goad (someone) into action by teasing or daring.
• intransitive verb To form needles; to crystallize in the form of needles.
• noun A small instrument of steel, sharply pointed at one end, with an eye to receive a thread, -- used in sewing.
• noun See Magnetic needle, under Magnetic.
• noun A slender rod or wire used in knitting; a knitting needle; also, a hooked instrument which carries the thread or twine, and by means of which knots or loops are formed in the process of netting, knitting, or crocheting.
• noun (Bot.) One of the needle-shaped secondary leaves of pine trees. See Pinus.
• noun Any slender, pointed object, like a needle, as a pointed crystal, a sharp pinnacle of rock, an obelisk, etc.
• noun Informal A hypodermic needle; a syringe fitted with a hypodermic needle, used for injecting fluids into the body.