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

“You were a needle in a haystack, to be sure!”

Read more on Literature

“Since our mail is being read by the DODO, I took pains to make my letter as boring, dull, tedious, and uninteresting as possible. I knew that only a true Swanburne girl would have the pluck and determination to find the real message within—like searching for a needle in a haystack.”

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"It's like looking for a needle in a haystack," Pavia said.

Read more on Science Daily

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

Read more on Los Angeles Times

"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.

Read more on BBC