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Having no need. [Obs.] Weeping into the needless stream. Shak.

nder like a needle or bristle, as some leaves or crystals; also, having sharp points like needless. A*cic"u*lar*ly, adv.

One prone to sound or excite alarms, especially, needless alarms. Macaulay.

A kind of verse consisting in English of twelve syllables. The needless Alexandrine ends the song, That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along. Pope.

To keep repeating needlessly; to iterate. Sir T. Herbert.

A needless repetition of words in speaking or writing. Milton.

take; to derive. Any drop thou borrowedst from thy mother. Shak. To borrow trouble, to be needlessly troubled; to be overapprehensive.

Something frightful, as a specter; anything imaginary that causes needless fright; something used to excite needless fear; also, something really dangerous, used to frighten children, etc. "Bugaboos to fright ye." Lloyd. But, to the world no bugbear is so great As want of figure and a small estate. Pope. The bugaboo of…

Causing needless fright. Locke.

A slaughterer; one who kills in large numbers, or with unusual cruelty; one who causes needless loss of life, as in battle. "Butcher of an innocent child." Shak. Butcher bird (Zoöl.), a species of shrike of the genus Lanius.

The act of slaughtering; the act of killing cruelly and needlessly. That dreadful butchering of one another. Addison.

s. Beyond comparison, so far superior as to have no likeness, or so as to make comparison needless. -- In comparison of, In comparison with, as compared with; in proportion to. [Archaic] "So miserably unpeopled in comparison of what it once was." Addison. -- Comparison of hands (Law), a mode of proving or disproving…

One who, or that which, disturbs of disquiets; a violator of peace; a troubler. A needless disturber of the peace of God's church and an author of dissension. Hooker.

A small box to hold a sailor's thread, needless, comb, etc.

rust. Denham. The grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down. Tennyson. A needless Alexandrine ends the song That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along. Pope.

An operation that consists in inserting needless in the part affected, and connecting them with the poles of a galvanic apparatus.

Going about much, needlessly or without purpose. Envy is a gadding passion, and walketh the streets. Bacon. The good nuns would check her gadding tongue. Tennyson. Gadding car, in quarrying, a car which carries a drilling machine so arranged as to drill a line of holes.

One who makes excessively nice or needless distinctions in reasoning; one who quibbles. "The caviling hairsplitter." De Quincey.

disturb; to render uneasy; to interfere with; to vex. They have molested the church with needless opposition. Hooker.

Anxious in an excessive or needless degree. -- O"ver*anx"ious*ly, adv.