DARNING NEEDLE • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Darning needle

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verb

Darn v. t. (past & past part. darned; pres. part. darning) To mend as a rent or hole, with interlacing stitches of yarn or thread by means of a needle; to sew together with yarn or thread. "He spent every day ten hours in his closet, in darning his stockings."

Darning last. See under Last.

Darning needle.

(a)

A long, strong needle for mending holes or rents, especially in stockings.

(b)

(Zool.) Any species of dragon fly, having a long, cylindrical body, resembling a needle. These flies are harmless and without stings. Note: (In this sense, usually written with a hyphen.) Called also devil's darning-needle.

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Etymology of 'Darning needle'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Darning needle" Quotes from Famous Books

... pinions, slowly passed us with their long legs stuck straight out astern, and their longer necks gathered into their crops, when we heard a loud shouting in the direction where the Captain's boat had vanished. Presently the Devil's Darning Needle, as the Scotch part of the crew loved to call the Dragonfly, stuck her long snout round the headland, and came spinning along with a Spanish canoe manned by four negroes, and steered by an elderly gentleman, a sharp acute—looking little man, in a gingham ...

— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... round world we live on, He made some parts very unlike other parts. The climate, the trees and plants, and the animals of some countries altogether differ from those of other countries. If we could go right through the globe just as a darning needle is run through a ball of worsted, we should come out close to a country ten times as large as England, which belongs to our Queen, and is called Australia. To get to it, however, we have really to sail round ...

— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston

... with me in some little house when we get older," mused Emma Jane, as with her darning needle poised in air she regarded the opposite wall dreamily, "I would do the housework and cooking, and copy all your poems and stories, and take them to the post-office, and you needn't do anything but write. It would ...

— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... my son," said the old man, and taking a long darning needle, he put a knob of sealing-wax on ...

— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm