Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word haystack. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word haystack, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say haystack in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word haystack you have here. The definition of the word haystack will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofhaystack, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
2010, Peter MacIntyre, PHP: The Good Parts, page 39:
Both of these functions will look through the haystack for the specified needle and, if they find it, will return the portion of the string from the beginning of the needle to the end of the haystack.
(more generally) Any place or collection of items through which one searches for something that is rare and hard to find.
2019, Malcolm Gladwell, Talking to Strangers, page 339:
But the point of confining the Kansas City gun experiment to the worst parts of the worst neighborhoods was to make the haystack just a little smaller, and to make the inevitable trade-off between fighting crime and harassing innocent people just a little more manageable.
A dish composed of a starchy food (rice, tortillas, crackers, etc.) topped by a protein (beans, cheese, meat, etc.) in combination with fresh vegetables, assembled on the plate by the diner.