n. A small pointed instrument, straight or curved, for carrying a thread through a woven fabric, paper, leather, felt, or other material.n. 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.n. Anything resembling a needle in shape.n. 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.n. 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 When the rod is withdrawn, it leaves a space in which can be inserted the tube of rush or grass, or the fuse, by which the charge is ignited.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 nailn. In w eaving, a horizontal piece of wire with an eye to receive the lifting-wire in a Jacquard loom.n. A sharp pinnacle of rock; a detached pointed rockn. In chem. and mineralogy, a crystal shaped like a needle; an aciform crystal.n. In zool, a slender, sharp spicule; an aciculum.n. In bot, a needle-shaped leaf, as of a conifer: as, a pine -needle.n. 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.n. 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.n. 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.n. n. plural In mining: Beams laid across a mine shaft to support a cage.n. Buntons.