HAYSTACK

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does haystack mean? 

• HAYSTACK (noun)
  The noun HAYSTACK has 1 sense:

1. a stack of hay

  Familiarity information: HAYSTACK used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• HAYSTACK (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A stack of hay

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Synonyms:

hayrick; haystack; rick

Hypernyms ("haystack" is a kind of...):

stack (an orderly pile)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "haystack"):

haycock (a small cone-shaped pile of hay that has been left in the field until it is dry enough to carry to the hayrick)

 Context examples 

This was, to lie behind the wall at the back of my old school, in a corner where there used to be a haystack.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Successful in this, the old simile of the needle in the haystack would be mild indeed compared with his brother’s chance of finding him.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Still, such a search is like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack: only one star in a thousand may be circling a black hole.

(Unpredicted stellar black hole discovered by astronomers, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Determining that a particular particle had been ejected and returned to Bennu might be a scientific feat similar to finding a needle in a haystack.

(NASA's OSIRIS-REx Explains Bennu Mystery Particles, NASA)

An intensive survey deep into the universe by NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes has yielded the proverbial needle-in-a-haystack: the farthest galaxy yet seen in an image that has been stretched and amplified by a phenomenon called gravitational lensing.

(NASA's Great Observatories Team Up to Find Magnified and Stretched Image of Distant Galaxy, NASA)

This is not necessarily because these deficiencies represent needles in a haystack, but because in a new and creative and perhaps eclectic intellectual product, any one of these opportunities for improvement may stand out only to someone with a particular expertise and/or history of experience.

(Peer Review, NCI Thesaurus)

Opposite me was an elderly lady in a great fur cloak, who looked in the dark more like a haystack than a lady, she was wrapped up to such a degree.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The wind was fair but fitful, and it was like looking for a needle in a haystack to raise that tiny boat out of the blue immensity.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

A ladder was brought, and I got down after the lady, who was like a haystack: not daring to stir, until her basket was removed.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

My bed at night was under another haystack, where I rested comfortably, after having washed my blistered feet in a stream, and dressed them as well as I was able, with some cool leaves.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)