knobbly
Britishadjective
Explanation
If something's lumpy and misshapen, you can describe it as knobbly. Don't throw out those knobbly potatoes from your garden — they're ugly, but they'll taste perfectly fine! If a camper pitches her tent over a bumpy patch of ground, she'll feel all of those knobbly roots and rocks through her sleeping bag later. This adjective, a variation on knobby, comes from knob, "rounded lump or bump." That gnarled oak tree in your yard is knobbly, and so are your little sister's bony knees.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
"They look like chocolate truffles, just don't eat them," jokes Jean Mason, the curator of the Cook Islands Library and Museum as she reaches into a display cabinet and pulls out a black, knobbly rock.
From BBC ● Dec. 9, 2024
They would feel just like a sticker, while patches with a silicon-based chip always feel knobbly.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 24, 2024
As juveniles, the color of their thick, knobbly skin changes to match their surroundings, helping to conceal them from predators.
From New York Times ● Jul. 19, 2022
To that end, tactile paving was developed—plates of knobbly bumps that feel different both under the feet and at the end of a white cane.
From Slate ● Jan. 29, 2022
Werfel busied himself putting on his formal hood, while Brangwain Spurge stopped chewing and stared in horror at a set of knobbly gray-green garments draped on frames by the windows.
From "The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge" by M.T. Anderson and Eugene Yelchin
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
