a needle in a haystack
needle
verb[ T ]
 informaluk /ˈniː.dəl/ us /ˈniː.dəl/
to annoy someone, especially by repeated criticism: 惹恼，激怒;（尤指）不断地数落
His mother was always needling him about getting a job.他母亲总是数落他，让他去找份工作。

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Causing feelings of anger and displeasure
aggravate
aggrieve
alienate
anger
annoy
bend
give someone the shitsidiom
go too faridiom
goat
grate
hack someone off
nark
rile
rub
rub someone up the wrong wayidiom
ruffle
ruffle someone's feathersidiom
tit
tooth
troll

You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

Disapproving & criticizing

needle | American Dictionary

needle
noun[ C ]
us/ˈni·dəl/

needlenoun[C] (TOOL)

a thin, solid, metal piece with a sharp point at one end, esp. one used for sewing that has a hole to hold thread:
Can you thread this needle for me?
A needle is also a small stick with a point or hook, used to make stitches:
knitting needles
A needle is also a thin metal tube with a sharp, pointed end, used to put a liquid, such as a medicine, into the body or to remove a liquid, such as blood, from the body.

needlenoun[C] (POINTER)

the thin, moving part on a compass (= device for finding direction) or measuring instrument that points in a particular direction or to a particular value

needlenoun[C] (LEAF)

one of the thin, stiff, green leaves of some evergreen trees:
pine needles
needle
verb[ T ]
 infmlus/ˈni·dəl/

needleverb[T] (ANNOY)

to purposely annoy someone by making critical remarks or jokes:
I hate to be needled about my weight.

Examples of needle

needle
If further dissemination is discovered and systemic therapy is considered, tissue confirmation by needle biopsy should be performed.
The application of a very sharp needle with a tip in atomic dimensions is used to scan material surfaces very closely.
They were aspirated with a 10 cm3 syringe attached to an 18 gauge needle.
In the prison for males, social workers from a non-governmental organization exchanged sterile syringes and needles for used equipment three times a week.
The control mice were inoculated per os with 500 larvae/animal using a 2 ml syringe connected to a gavage needle.
Moreover, it is a truly daunting task to find the needle you are looking for in the enormous haystack of documents that search-engines return.
The needle was then withdrawn, the wound was closed in anatomic layers and the skin sutured.
One or more layers of photographic film are used as diaphragms and are punctured by a solenoid-operated plunger needle.
It would then be 'tracked' (or 'needle-dropped') into the sequence where it was required.
This occurs when a needle accidentally perforates the skin of the hand, usually the palm.
The needle is just gliding around in the compass housing, doing no actual steering at all.
Better filtering performance can be expected in the event that a technique for measuring both the position and orientation of the needle tip becomes available.
This approach will be used for path planning for the cart and the flexible needle in subsequent sections.
Each needle is taken in turn and inserted through its assigned hole in the template to its assigned depth.
The aspirated cytoplasm and the spermatozoon were then gently ejected into the cytoplasm and the needle was withdrawn.
See all examples of needle
These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.