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
100 SAT Words Beginning with "J," "K," and "L"
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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
His last three films before adapting a millennia-old poem were a historical epic about an evacuation operation, a time-travel thriller that’s knotty to the point of confusion and a biopic on a physicist.
From Salon ● Jul. 19, 2026
As a portrait of an artist at a crossroads, it's compellingly knotty.
From BBC ● Mar. 4, 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
Ivy wondered, curled under a knotty blanket given to her by the gnomes.
From "How to Disappear Completely" by Ali Standish
It’s also a knottier one than the others.
From Slate ● Nov. 10, 2025
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
Later the Picasso inheritance grew knottier, with feminist historians and scholars of African and Oceanic art revealing the oversights and injuries of his omnivorous visual appetite.
From New York Times ● Apr. 6, 2023
They beat up a little game peradventure—and leave it to knottier heads, more robust constitutions, to run it down.
From The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 2 Elia and The Last Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb
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
With less than three months before the voting begins, Ms. Warren has, in some ways, already completed the knottiest leg of her would-be path to the Democratic presidential nomination.
From New York Times ● Nov. 23, 2019
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
After a long pause, Hermione voiced the knottiest question of all in a hesitant voice.
From "Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets" by J. K. Rowling
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.
