haystack
Americannoun
-
haystacks
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of haystack
Explanation
A haystack is a pile or bundle of hay. On farms, after hay has been cut, it's formed into haystacks until being fed to farm animals. Haystacks come in different shapes and sizes, including piles of rectangular blocks of hay; rounded bales; and pointed piles of hay. These haystacks are all packed tightly, and they're often covered to protect them from the rain. You've probably heard the phrase "a needle in a haystack," an idiom that's used when a search is on for some impossibly tiny thing that's lost.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
"In this case, finding a few cysts of cyclospora in a lettuce sample is literally like looking for a needle in a haystack," he continued.
From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026
The best place to hide needles is in a haystack.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 10, 2026
The process can take months for a single archaeological site and often feels like searching for a needle in a haystack.
From Science Daily ● May 11, 2026
Maven was built to find the needle in the haystack.
From Barron's ● Apr. 5, 2026
He saw Billy working on the last of the haystack.
From "The Red Pony" by John Steinbeck
I’ve used AI to summarize vast swaths of documents and pull needles from giant haystacks.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2025
"It's not just one needle in a haystack, but one needle in several haystacks," Singapore's second minister for home affairs, Josephine Teo, told parliament in October last year.
From BBC ● Apr. 12, 2024
"You really are fishing needles out of haystacks."
From Science Daily ● Mar. 20, 2024
Rather than spotting needles in a haystack, Gold said, satellites tend to capture “really big haystacks that are moving very slowly.”
From Science Magazine ● May 31, 2023
Seeing haystacks in a nearby field, Jinjoo suggested they sleep hidden behind them for the night.
From "Finding Junie Kim" by Ellen Oh
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
