Knot

/nɒt/ · noun

Meaning

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..

Definitions by Sense

1. 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.
2. A tangled clump of hair or similar.
3. A maze-like pattern.
4. (mathematics) A non-self-intersecting closed curve in (e.g., three-dimensional) space that is an abstraction of a knot (in sense 1 above).
5. A difficult situation.
6. The whorl left in lumber by the base of a branch growing out of the tree's trunk.
7. Local swelling in a tissue area, especially skin, often due to injury.
8. A tightened and contracted part of a muscle that feels like a hard lump under the skin.

Example Sentences

Climbers must make sure that all knots are both secure and of types that will not weaken the rope.

The obstructive tendency attributed to the knot in spiritual matters appears in a Swiss superstition that if, in sewing a corpse into its shroud, you make a knot on the thread, it will hinder the soul of the deceased on its passage to eternity.

The nurse was brushing knots from the protesting child's hair.

Flowers worthy of paradise, which, not nice art / In beds and curious knots, but nature boon / Poured forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain.

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.

I got into a knot when I inadvertently insulted a policeman.

A man shall be perplexed with knots, and problems of business, and contrary affairs.

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.

Synonyms for knot

Antonyms for knot

Related Words

Word Forms

• knots
• knotting
• knotted
• knot

Usage Notes

Choose a synonym only when it preserves the intended meaning, tone, and grammar of the full sentence.

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