KNOTTY (knottier, knottiest)

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

Irregular inflected forms: knottier    , knottiest   

 Dictionary entry overview: What does knotty mean? 

• KNOTTY (adjective)
  The adjective KNOTTY has 4 senses:

1. making great mental demands; hard to comprehend or solve or believe

2. used of old persons or old trees; covered with knobs or knots

3. highly complex or intricate and occasionally devious

4. tangled in knots or snarls

  Familiarity information: KNOTTY used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• KNOTTY (adjective)

Comparative: knottier   
Superlative: knottiest   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Making great mental demands; hard to comprehend or solve or believe

Synonyms:

baffling; elusive; knotty; problematic; problematical; tough

Context example:

a problematic situation at home

Similar:

difficult; hard (not easy; requiring great physical or mental effort to accomplish or comprehend or endure)

Derivation:

knottiness (puzzling complexity)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Used of old persons or old trees; covered with knobs or knots

Synonyms:

gnarled; gnarly; knobbed; knotted; knotty

Context example:

a knobbed stick

Similar:

crooked (having or marked by bends or angles; not straight or aligned)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Highly complex or intricate and occasionally devious

Synonyms:

Byzantine; convoluted; involved; knotty; tangled; tortuous

Context example:

tortuous negotiations lasting for months

Similar:

complex (complicated in structure; consisting of interconnected parts)

Derivation:

knottiness (puzzling complexity)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Tangled in knots or snarls

Synonyms:

knotty; snarled; snarly

Context example:

snarled thread

Similar:

tangled (in a confused mass)

Derivation:

knot (any of various fastenings formed by looping and tying a rope (or cord) upon itself or to another rope or to another object)

knot (something twisted and tight and swollen)

 Context examples 

This other man was shorter of leg and longer of arm, with muscles that were stringy and knotty rather than rounded and swelling.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

There was a grass-grown track descending the forest aisle between hoar and knotty shafts and under branched arches.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Thick, muscular arms, covered with a reddish down, protruded from the wide sleeves of his habit, while his white shirt, looped up upon one side, gave a glimpse of a huge knotty leg, scarred and torn with the scratches of brambles.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Trot, I tell you what, my dear, said my aunt, one morning in the Christmas season when I left school: as this knotty point is still unsettled, and as we must not make a mistake in our decision if we can help it, I think we had better take a little breathing-time.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

It was what might be termed a sinewy, knotty strength, of the kind we ascribe to lean and wiry men, but which, in him, because of his heavy build, partook more of the enlarged gorilla order.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

To accomplish the change was like a reflux of being, and this when the plasticity of youth was no longer his; when the fibre of him had become tough and knotty; when the warp and the woof of him had made of him an adamantine texture, harsh and unyielding; when the face of his spirit had become iron and all his instincts and axioms had crystallised into set rules, cautions, dislikes, and desires.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

His muscles had wasted away to knotty strings, and the flesh pads had disappeared, so that each rib and every bone in his frame were outlined cleanly through the loose hide that was wrinkled in folds of emptiness.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

Its grey front stood out well from the background of a rookery, whose cawing tenants were now on the wing: they flew over the lawn and grounds to alight in a great meadow, from which these were separated by a sunk fence, and where an array of mighty old thorn trees, strong, knotty, and broad as oaks, at once explained the etymology of the mansion's designation.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)