knot
UK /nɒt/ · US /nɑt/ noun, verb
Forms knots knotting knotted
- noun A looping of a piece of string or of any other long, flexible material that cannot be untangled without passing one or both ends of the material through its loops. “Climbers must make sure that all knots are both secure and of types that will not weaken the rope.”
- noun A tangled clump of hair or similar. “The nurse was brushing knots from the protesting child's hair.”
- noun A maze-like pattern.
- noun (mathematics) A non-self-intersecting closed curve in (e.g., three-dimensional) space that is an abstraction of a knot (in sense 1 above). “A knot can be defined as a non-self-intersecting broken line whose endpoints coincide: when such a knot is constrained to lie in a plane, then it is simply a polygon.”
- noun A difficult situation. “I got into a knot when I inadvertently insulted a policeman.”
- noun The whorl left in lumber by the base of a branch growing out of the tree's trunk. “When preparing to tell stories at a campfire, I like to set aside a pile of pine logs with lots of knots, since they burn brighter and make dramatic pops and cracks.”
- noun Local swelling in a tissue area, especially skin, often due to injury. “Jeremy had a knot on his head where he had bumped it on the bedframe.”
- noun A tightened and contracted part of a muscle that feels like a hard lump under the skin.
- verb (transitive) To form into a knot; to tie with a knot or knots. “We knotted the ends of the rope to keep it from unravelling.”
- verb (transitive) To form wrinkles in the forehead, as a sign of concentration, concern, surprise, etc. “She knotted her brow in concentration while attempting to unravel the tangled strands.”
- verb To unite closely; to knit together.
- verb (transitive, obsolete, rare) To entangle or perplex; to puzzle.
- verb (intransitive) To form knots.
- verb (intransitive) To knit knots for a fringe.
- noun One of a variety of shore birds; red-breasted sandpiper (variously Calidris canutus or Tringa canutus).
Synonyms
kn kt nm bind tie knit attach baffle join put together flummox gnarl nautical mile mile mi naut mi international nautical mile air mile slub burl greyback grayback Calidris canutus ravel tangle
Antonyms
Etymology
From Middle English knotte, from Old English cnotta, from Proto-West Germanic *knottō, from Proto-Germanic *knuttô, *knudô (“knot”); probably ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gnod- (“to bind”).
See also Old High German knoto (German Knoten, Dutch knot, Low German Knütte; also Old Norse knútr > Danish knude, Swedish knut, Norwegian knute, Faroese knútur, Icelandic hnútur; also Latin nōdus and its Romance descendants. Doublet of knout, node, and nodus.
* (unit of speed): From the practice of counting the number of knots in the logline (as it is paid out) in a standard time. Traditionally spaced at one every ¹⁄₁₂₀ of a mile.
Supposed to be derived from the name of King Canute, with whom the bird was a favourite article of food. See the specific epithet canutus.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A bond of union; a connection; a tie. "With nuptial knot." Shak.
- noun Something not easily solved; an intricacy; a difficulty; a perplexity; a problem.
- verb To tie in or with, or form into, a knot or knots; to form a knot on, as a rope; to entangle. "Knotted curls." Drayton.
- verb To unite closely; to knit together. Bacon.
Etymology [OE. knot, knotte, AS. cnotta; akin to D. knot, OHG. chnodo, chnoto, G. knoten, Icel. kn, Sw. knut, Dan. knude, and perh. to L. nodus. Cf. Knout, Knit.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “knot”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details