Look for a needle in a haystack
Meaning: To search for something you have almost no chance of finding, because the thing is tiny and the place holding it is vast.
Language: English
Literally: (Already vivid in English)
Category: The Absurd
Origin: The image is much older than the wording we use now. Thomas More reached for it in 1532, sending a reader off to hunt a needle in a meadow of hay, and when Shelton translated Don Quixote in 1620 the English form was a needle in a bottle of hay. That bottle is not the vessel: it comes from Old French botel, a bundle, which is why French still says botte de foin. Pottle, a small measure, appears later as a garbling of bottle, and 19th-century proverb dictionaries still record that form. Haystack displaced both only in the 1800s.
Equivalents in other languages
- French: Chercher une aiguille dans une botte de foin — literally: To look for a needle in a bundle of hay
- Spanish: Buscar una aguja en un pajar — literally: To look for a needle in a haystack
- German: Eine Nadel im Heuhaufen suchen — literally: To search for a needle in the haystack
More idioms — The Absurd
- Ça ne casse pas trois pattes à un canard — It's nothing special or impressive.
- C'est comme pisser dans un violon — A completely pointless effort.
- Da steppt der Bär — It's going to be a great party.
- Ich glaub mein Schwein pfeift — I can't believe it! That's outrageous!
- Estar como una cabra — To be completely crazy.
- Fare il diavolo a quattro — To raise absolute hell; to cause a huge scene.
More English idioms
- Know where the shoe pinches — To know exactly where the real trouble lies.
- Take the wrong sow by the ear — To go after the wrong target, or blame the wrong person.
- The last straw that broke the camel's back — The final small burden that causes a total collapse.
- To have a frog in your throat — To have difficulty speaking due to hoarseness.
- It's raining cats and dogs — It's raining extremely heavily.
- To have butterflies in your stomach — To feel nervous excitement.
From our tongue twisters
- Unique New York. — Three words that jam the 'y/n/k' sequence together — repeat it and it collapses into 'you…
- Pad kid poured curd pulled cod. — Alternating repetition — the consonants swap at the start of every other word, which is w…
- Red lorry, yellow lorry. — The 'l/r' alternation drill — deceptively short, yet almost impossible to say fast withou…
Loading the full interactive collection…