&fist] In some needles(as for sewing machines) the eye is at the pointed end, but in ordinary needles it is at the blunt end.

Dipping needle. See under Dipping. -- Needle bar, the reciprocating bar to which the needle of a sewing machine is attached. -- Needle beam (Arch.), to shoring, the horizontal cross timber which goes through the wall or a pier, and upon which the weight of the wall rests, when a building is shored up to allow of alterations in the lower part. -- Needle furze (Bot.), a prickly leguminous plant of Western Europe; the petty whin (Genista Anglica). -- Needle gun, a firearm loaded at the breech with a cartridge carrying its own fulminate, which is exploded by driving a slender needle, or pin, into it. -- Needle loom (Weaving), a loom in which the weft thread is carried through the shed by a long eye- pointed needle instead of by a shuttle. -- Needle ore (Min.), acicular bismuth; a sulphide of bismuth, lead, and copper occuring in acicular crystals; -- called also aikinite. -- Needle shell (Zoöl.), a sea urchin. -- Needle spar (Min.), aragonite. -- Needle telegraph, a telegraph in which the signals are given by the deflections of a magnetic needle to the right or to the left of a certain position. -- Sea needle (Zoöl.), the garfish.