Knotty (Adjective)
Meaning 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".
Classification
All adjective clusters.
Examples
- The puzzle was so knotty that even the brightest students struggled to solve it.
- Her mysterious disappearance left a knotty question in everyone's minds about her fate.
- After listening to the conflicting statements, I found it knotty to distinguish the truth from lies.
- She pondered the knotty question of how to deal with the changing landscape of her business.
- Understanding quantum physics proved to be a knotty problem that the novice scientists could hardly tackle.
Synonyms
Related Words
Meaning 2
Tangled in knots or snarls; "a mass of knotted string"; "snarled thread".
Classification
All adjective clusters.
Examples
- The old rope was knotty and difficult to untangle.
- She struggled to comb out the knotty tangles in her daughter's hair.
- The fisherman carefully worked to free the knotty net from the rocks.
- The knotty threads of the sweater were a challenge to repair.
- The gardener's hands were stiff from trying to untangle the knotty vines.
Synonyms
Related Words
Meaning 3
Used of old persons or old trees; covered with knobs or knots; "gnarled and knotted hands"; "a knobbed stick".
Classification
All adjective clusters.
Examples
- The old sailor's knotty hands told the story of a lifetime of hard work at sea.
- The ancient tree's knotty branches twisted and turned in impossible directions.
- Her grandmother's knotty fingers moved deftly as she knitted a warm sweater.
- The walking stick was worn smooth in places, but still had a few knotty bumps.
- The old man's knotty face was a map of wrinkles and age spots.
Synonyms
Meaning 4
Highly complex or intricate and occasionally devious; "the Byzantine tax structure"; "Byzantine methods for holding on to his chairmanship"; "convoluted legal language"; "convoluted reasoning"; "the plot was too involved"; "a knotty problem"; "got his way by labyrinthine maneuvering"; "Oh, what a tangled web we weave"- Sir Walter Scott; "tortuous legal procedures"; "tortuous negotiations lasting for months".
Classification
All adjective clusters.
Examples
- The software engineer struggled to solve the knotty problem of debugging the code on time.
- Her design became so knotty that she ended up having to re-design the entire layout.
- Byzantine methods were used by staff members to defend their boss.
- The tortuous process of choosing a new director for the company was challenging for many.
- Unraveling the details of the very knotty patent lawsuit took months of effort.