Adam's needle
    n 1: yucca with long stiff leaves having filamentlike appendages
         [syn: Adam's needle, Adam's needle-and-thread,
         spoonleaf yucca, needle palm, Yucca filamentosa]

Adam \Ad"am\, n.
   1. The name given in the Bible to the first man, the
      progenitor of the human race.
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   2. (As a symbol) "Original sin;" human frailty.
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            And whipped the offending Adam out of him. --Shak.
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   Adam's ale, water. [Coll.]

   Adam's apple.

   1. (Bot.)
      (a) A species of banana (Musa paradisiaca). It attains a
          height of twenty feet or more. --Paxton.
      (b) A species of lime (Citris limetta).

   2. The projection formed by the thyroid cartilage in the
      neck. It is particularly prominent in males, and is so
      called from a notion that it was caused by the forbidden
      fruit (an apple) sticking in the throat of our first
      parent.

   Adam's flannel (Bot.), the mullein (Verbascum thapsus).
      

   Adam's needle (Bot.), the popular name of a genus (Yucca)
      of liliaceous plants.
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Yucca \Yuc"ca\, n. [NL., from Yuca, its name in St. Domingo.]
   (Bot.)
   A genus of American liliaceous, sometimes arborescent, plants
   having long, pointed, and often rigid, leaves at the top of a
   more or less woody stem, and bearing a large panicle of showy
   white blossoms.
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   Note: The species with more rigid leaves (as Yucca
         aloifolia, Yucca Treculiana, and Yucca baccata)
         are called Spanish bayonet, and one with softer
         leaves (Yucca filamentosa) is called bear grass,
         and Adam's needle.
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   Yucca moth (Zool.), a small silvery moth (Pronuba
      yuccasella) whose larvae feed on plants of the genus
      Yucca.
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