| 单词 | look for a needle in a haystack |
| 释义 | > as lemmasto look for a needle in a haystack A stack or large pile of hay built in the open air, of regular form and finished off with a pointed or ridged top. to look for a needle in a haystack: see needle n. 1d. ΘΚΠ the world > food and drink > farming > cultivation or tillage > cultivation of plants or crops > storage or preservation of crops > [noun] > stacking or ricking > stack or rick moweOE rickeOE pease-ricka1325 stackc1330 tassc1330 rucka1382 hayrick14.. haystack14.. sedge reekc1440 hay-mow1483 hay-goaf1570 rack1574 hovel1591 scroo1604 mow-stack1611 sow1659 corn-rick1669 bean-rick1677 barley-mow1714 pea rick1766 rickle1768 bike1771 stacklet1796 bean-stack1828 14.. in T. Wright & R. P. Wülcker Anglo-Saxon & Old Eng. Vocab. (1884) I. 725/32 Hic arconius, a haystak. 1555 R. Eden Two Viages into Guinea in tr. Peter Martyr of Angleria Decades of Newe Worlde f. 351v The myddlemost is lyke a heye stacke. 1688 R. Holme Acad. Armory iii. 73/1 A Hay Stack is..shaped broad at the bottom and narrow at the top. 1850 T. Carlyle Latter-day Pamphlets vi. 34 If these rats meet a haystack, they eat their way through it. to look for a needle in a haystack d. a needle in a haystack and variants: something that would be immensely difficult to find. Usually taken as an example of something it is foolish to attempt to find. Chiefly in proverbial phrases, as to look for a needle in a haystack.With a needle in a bottle of hay cf. bottle n.4 ΘΚΠ the world > action or operation > endeavour > make an attempt or endeavour [verb (intransitive)] > attempt the impossible to hunt for or catch a hare with a tabor1399 gnaw a file1484 to take hares with foxes1577 to seek a hare in a hen's nest1599 to wash a Negro (white)1611 to milk the bull (also he-goat, ram)1616 to lick a file1647 to set the tortoise to catch the hare1803 to look for a needle in a haystack1855 to bite file1880 the world > action or operation > endeavour > searching or seeking > make a search [verb (intransitive)] > engage in a hopeless search to look for a needle in a haystack1855 c1530 T. More Let. Impugnynge J. Fryth in Wks. (1557) 837/2 To seke out one lyne in all hys bookes wer to go looke a nedle in a medow. 1592 R. Greene Quip for Vpstart Courtier sig. Ev He..gropeth in the dark to find a needle in a bottle of hay. 1690 W. Walker Idiomatologia Anglo-Lat. (1695) Pref. A labour much like that of seeking a needle in a Bottle of Hay. 1711 E. Ward Vulgus Britannicus (ed. 3) iii. 95 Seeking we may say, A Needle in a Truss of Hay. 1742 T. Gray Let. 24 May in Corr. (1971) I. 203 A coach that seem'd to have lost its way by looking for a needle in a bottle of hay. 1779 W. Rogers in J. Sullivan Jrnls. Mil. Exped. (1887) 262 But agreeably to the old adage it was similar to looking for needles in a hay stack. 1832 New-Eng. Mag. Aug. 125 That is what many a man has tried..but a wild goose chase they have had of it. One might as well look for a needle in a bottle of hay. 1840 Southern Literary Messenger 6 756/1 To have followed them to Europe, would indeed have been, as the old man said, ‘to look for a needle in a haystack’. 1855 C. Kingsley Westward Ho! xxx But it's ill looking for a needle in a haystack. 1875 J. R. Lowell Spenser in Prose Wks. (1890) IV. 268 These thin needles of wit buried in unwieldy haystacks of verse. 1955 ‘N. Shute’ Requiem for Wren (1958) 191 It was like looking for a needle in a bundle of hay, of course. 2000 Sci. News 29 Apr. 284/1 Today's biologists need computing power to find even the most obvious needles in molecular haystacks of information. < as lemmas |
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