pins and needles

1. 1.

   a sharp tingling sensation from lack of circulation

   Broaderprickling

Questions about pins and needles

What does pins and needles mean?

pins and needles means "a sharp tingling sensation from lack of circulation".

Is pins and needles a common word?

pins and needles is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.