Knotty

a. [f. KNOT sb.¹ + -Y.]

  1.  Of a cord, etc.: Having or full of knots; tied or entangled in knots.

a. 1240.  Wohunge, in Cott. Hom., 281. Þu wes … wið cnotti swepes swungen.

c. 1440.  Promp. Parv., 280/2. Knotty, nodosus.

1576.  Gascoigne, Philomene, 112. She bare a skourge, with many a knottie string.

1602.  Shaks., Ham., I. v. 18. Make … Thy knotty [Qo. knotted] and combined locks to part, And each particular haire to stand an end.

1634.  Sir T. Herbert, Trav., 14. Their haire curld,… blacke and knotty.

1852.  R. S. Surtees, Sponge’s Sp. Tour (1893), 310. Regardless of … the crack of his little knotty whip.

  2.  fig. Full of intellectual difficulties or complications of thought; hard to ‘unravel,’ explain or solve; involved, intricate, perplexing, puzzling. (Sometimes with mixture of sense 4.)

a. 1225.  Leg. Kath., 1157. Ich habbe uncnut summe of þeos cnotti cnotten.

1573–80.  Baret, Alv., K 122. Knottie, full of knots, or difficulties.

1625.  Bacon, Ess., Regim. Health (Arb.), 59. Auoid … Anger fretting inwards; Subtill and knottie Inquisitions.

1638.  Penit. Conf., vii. (1657), 192. Reckoned amongst the knotty pieces of Christian Religion.

1701.  Stanley’s Hist. Philos., Biog. 14. Æschylus, the most knotty and intricate of all the Greek Poets.

1702.  Pope, Jan. & May, 140. The knotty point was urg’d on either side.

1874.  Carpenter, Ment. Phys., I. ii. § 79 (1879), 83. The man who is … in a complete reverie, unravelling some knotty subject.

  3.  Abounding in or covered with knots, knobs, or rough protuberances; rugged, gnarled; containing knots, as a board.

c. 1386.  Chaucer, Knt.’s T., 1119. A forest,… With knotty knarry bareyne trees olde.

c. 1420.  Pallad. on Husb., III. 377. Ffertile, & fressh, ek knotty, sprongen newe Thy graffes be.

c. 1440.  Promp. Parv., 280/2. Knotty, wythe-in the flesche, glandulosus.

1594.  Blundevil, Exerc., III. I. viii. (1636), 287. Like knots in a knotty board.

1692.  Bentley, 8 Serm. (1724), 331. The scragged and knotty Backbone.

1762.  R. Guy, Pract. Obs. Cancers, 75. A Cancer in her Breast, rough on the Surface, with knotty Vessels.

1821.  Clare, Vill. Minstr., I. 122. The wild shelter of a knotty oak.

1881.  Miss Yonge, Lads & Lasses Langley, ii. 97. She knelt upon the grass, with her bare hard-working knotty hands clasped.

  4.  Hard and rough in character; rugged.

a. 1568.  Ascham, Scholem., I. (Arb.), 34. A witte … that is not ouer dulle, heauie, knottie and lumpishe.

1643.  Milton, Divorce, Pref., Wks. (1851), 19. To doe this … with a smooth and pleasing lesson, which receiv’d hath the vertue to soften and dispell rooted and knotty sorrowes.

1663.  J. Spencer, Prodigies (1665), 341. A kind of blunter wedges provided by divine Wisdom to work upon those knotty tempers, upon which those instruments of a finer edg … can do no good.

1821.  Lamb, Elia, Ser. I. Imperf. Symp. They beat up a little game peradventure—and leave it to knottier heads … to run it down.

  5.  Comb., as knotty-pated [perh. associated with not-headed, not-pated (1 Hen. IV., II. iv. 78)], blockheaded.

1596.  Shaks., 1 Hen. IV., II. iv. 251. Thou Clay-brayn’d Guts, thou Knotty-pated Foole.