a. Also 6–7 knobbie, 9 nobby. [f. KNOB sb. + -Y1.]
1. Full of, abounding in, bearing, or covered with knobs or protuberances; knotty.
1543. Traheron, Vigo’s Chirurg., 166. Ovide sayth … no medicine can heale the knobbie gout.
1607. Hieron, Wks., I. 235. A crooked and knobby tree must first be hewed and squared.
1647. H. More, Song of Soul, III. App. xxxiii. Humours did arrive His knobby head, and a fair pair of horns contrive.
a. 1722. Lisle, Husb. (1752), 140. The smooth loose land should be first rolled, and the rough knobby land be deferred.
1844. Dickens, Mart. Chuz., xxxiii. His face was almost as hard and knobby as his stick.
fig. 1640. Howell, Dodona’s Gr. (1645), 124. The Informers continued in a knobby kind of obstinacy.
2. Of the nature of a knob, knob-shaped.
1764. Grainger, Sugar-Cane, IV. 274. When no more Round knobby spots deform, but the disease Seems at a pause.
1848. Dickens, Dombey, x. (C. D. ed.), 82. The captain … brought out his wide suit of blue … and his knobby nose in full relief.
