knotty

adj

Etymology: 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”)

1. Of string or something stringlike: full of, or tied up, in knots.

   “I could a Tale vnfold, vvhoſe lighteſt vvord / VVould harrovv vp thy ſoule, freeze thy young blood, / Make thy tvvo eyes like Starres, ſtart from their Spheres, / Thy knotty and combined locks to part, / And each particular haire to ſtand an end, / Like Quilles vpon the fretfull Porpentine: […]”

   “Their heads are long, their haire curld, and ſeeming rather wooll, then haire; tis blacke and knotty: […]”

2. Of a part of the body, a tree, etc.: full of knots (knobs or swellings); gnarled, knobbly.

   “a knotty pine”

   “If thou murmur'ſt, I vvwill rend an Oake / And peg thee in his knotty entrailes, till / Thou haſt hovvl'd avvay tvvelve vvinters.”

3. Complicated or tricky; complex, difficult.

   “a knotty problem”

   “crop-headed, short-haired”

4. Of an austere or hard nature; rugged.

   “[A] witte in youth, that is not ouer dulle, heauie, knottie and lumpiſhe, but hard, rough, and though ſomwhat ſtaffiſhe, […] ſuch a witte I ſay, if it be, at the firſt well handled by the mother, and rightlie ſmothed and wrought as it ſhould, not ouerwhartlie, and against the wood, by the ſcholemaſter, both for learning, and hole courſe of liuing, proueth alwaies the beſt.”

   “[…] I may erre perhaps in ſoothing my ſelfe that this preſent truth reviv'd, vvill deſerve on all hands to be not ſiniſterly receiv'd, […] but vvith a ſmooth and pleaſing leſſon, vvhich receiv'd hath the vertue to ſoften and diſpell rooted and knotty ſorrovves: […]”