knotty
Americanadjective
-
a knotty piece of wood.
-
involved, intricate, or difficult.
a knotty problem.
- Synonyms:
- complicated, complex
adjective
-
(of wood, rope, etc) full of or characterized by knots
-
extremely difficult or intricate
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of knotty
First recorded in 1200–50, knotty is from the Middle English word cnotti. See knot 1, -y 1
Explanation
Whether it’s pine or problems, sometimes the word knotty can apply to both. Knotty can describe something that has a lot of knots, either literally or figuratively. The adjective knotty is a way to describe something that’s covered in knots. It can be used in a literal sense to refer to wood that is covered in hard, irregular knots — you’ve probably seen these circular, knobby imperfections that sometime appear on wood. The word can also be used figuratively to describe something that is intricate and difficult to solve, such as a knotty political problem involving two warring nations or a knotty legal issue involving complicated constitutional issues.
Vocabulary lists containing knotty
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The BFG
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"Deep Survival" by Laurence Gonzales
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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.
See Examples For:
Jenée Desmond-Harris offers advice on untangling this knotty disagreement.
From Slate ● Jul. 21, 2026
After decades of acquisitions under empire-building bosses who touted the benefits of scale, Volkswagen is both a carmaker itself and a holding entity for other brands—a much more knotty setup than at its global peers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 10, 2026
The BBC's own review noted that there was a disconnect between the "muscular" songs and the "existential crisis" of Styles' lyrics, concluding: "As a portrait of an artist at a crossroads, it's compellingly knotty."
From BBC ● Mar. 13, 2026
What Thompson-Hernández’s art so easily dispels, no matter the genre it finds a home in, are all the knotty, misguided and trite representations of otherness in our contemporary world.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 27, 2026
They don’t have much top, but lots of knotty roots, shaped sort of like sweet potatoes.
From "Old Yeller" by Fred Gipson
Ultimately the vibe of “The Outrun” is closer to meandering travelogue than the knottier healing drama we were hoping for.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 3, 2024
Engineers say Copilot saves them hundreds of hours a month by handling tedious and repetitive tasks, affording them time to focus on knottier challenges.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 22, 2024
Negotiators shuttled between the Houthis and the Yemeni government, framing it as a way to prevent a spill while punting on the knottier questions about what to do with the oil.
From Salon ● Jul. 29, 2023
Some of the knottier, less discussed portions of the debt agreement’s climate role involve some aggressive accounting.
From Slate ● May 30, 2023
But knottier points we knew not half so well, Deprived us soon of our paternal cell; And certain laws, by sufferers thought unjust.
From The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, Volume 1 by Gilfillan, George
This massive achievement solves one of the knottiest problems in biology, and it won the AI’s creators a $3-million Breakthrough Prize.
From Scientific American ● Dec. 15, 2022
The chewiest, knottiest song here is the title track, which concludes the album, a six-minute meditation that feels designed, after a half-hour of reckoning, to be inconclusive.
From New York Times ● Jan. 23, 2020
Deep in the knottiest verse of “Kung Fu,” Cordae astutely notes, “My future’s a tad bright.”
From Washington Post ● Dec. 13, 2018
The morning’s knottiest exhortation came from Ma Catalina Vázquez Pérez, 51, who had woken at 5am hoping Amlo could get her son and her son-in-law out of jail.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 20, 2018
“As Agatha Swanburne once remarked, ‘Patience can untangle the knottiest shoelace, but so can a pair of scissors,’” she announced.
From "The Unseen Guest" by Maryrose Wood
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.
