Link Centre Dictionary

knotty

UK/ˈnɒti/ US/ˈnɑti/ uncommon

adjective

1.

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

  • “a baffling problem”
  • “I faced the knotty problem of what to have for breakfast”
  • “a problematic situation at home”
Synonyms
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2.

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

  • “gnarled and knotted hands”
  • “a knobbed stick”
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3.

highly involved or intricate

  • “the Byzantine tax structure”
  • “convoluted legal language”
  • “convoluted reasoning”
  • “intricate needlework”
  • “an intricate labyrinth of refined phraseology”
  • “the plot was too involved”
  • “a knotty problem”
Synonyms
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Origin

From Middle English knotti, knotty (“having a knot in it; full of knots; tied together (?); resembling a knot, knotlike; having knobs or protuberances; bulging, convex; of a tree, branch, etc.: full of knots, gnarled; of a plant cutting to be grafted or planted: full of buds or eyes; having joints (?); having swollen joints; of flesh: glandular; of flesh: granular, lumpy, especially, having many swellings; mangy, scurfy (?); having pimples (?); of cauterization: carried out on glandular tissue; (figuratively) of a question or problem: difficult, intricate”) [and other forms], from knotte (“knot; pattern of intersecting lines; coil of a snake”) (from Old English cnotta (“knot”), from Proto-Germanic *knuttô (“knot”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *gned- (“to bind”)) + -i (suffix forming adjectives from nouns). The English word may be analysed as knot + -y (suffix forming adjectives with the sense ‘having the quality of’). Cognates * Dutch knoestig (“knotty”) * German knotig (“knotty”) * Swedish knotig, knutig (“knotty”)

Phrases

  • Knotty Ash

Related words

Word family

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.