needle in a haystack

1. An item that is very hard or impossible to locate, as in Looking for that screw in Dean's workshop amounts to looking for a needle in a haystack. Originating in the early 1500s, with meadow instead of haystack, this metaphor exists in many other languages as well.

Example Sentences

“It’s a needle in a haystack to find an opportunity that makes financial sense to build today,” Goldstein said.

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"They are looking for a needle in a haystack, sometimes looking for single beetles - to get hold of the pioneer species before they are allowed to establish," Andrea Deol said.

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Before services like his came along, finding work, or even the best route, was like "finding a needle in a haystack", the Freightera boss explains.

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He says looking for shrapnel in patients is like "looking for a needle in a haystack"- it is not always successful and delays treatment of other casualties.

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Dr Harry Bennett, an expert in maritime history, said the dive team had found "the underwater archaeological equivalent of a needle in a haystack".

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