knotty, snarled, snarly
(adjective) tangled in knots or snarls; “a mass of knotted string”; “snarled thread”
baffling, elusive, knotty, problematic, problematical, tough
(adjective) making great mental demands; hard to comprehend or solve or believe; “a baffling problem”; “I faced the knotty problem of what to have for breakfast”; “a problematic situation at home”
Byzantine, convoluted, involved, knotty, tangled, tortuous
(adjective) highly complex or intricate and occasionally devious; “the Byzantine tax structure”; “Byzantine methods for holding on to his chairmanship”; “convoluted legal language”; “convoluted reasoning”; “the plot was too involved”; “a knotty problem”; “got his way by labyrinthine maneuvering”; “Oh, what a tangled web we weave”- Sir Walter Scott; “tortuous legal procedures”; “tortuous negotiations lasting for months”
gnarled, gnarly, knotted, knotty, knobbed
(adjective) used of old persons or old trees; covered with knobs or knots; “gnarled and knotted hands”; “a knobbed stick”
Source: WordNet® 3.1
knotty (comparative knottier or more knotty, superlative knottiest or most knotty)
Full of knots.
Complicated or tricky; complex; difficult.
Synonyms: intricate, thorny
Source: Wiktionary
Knot"ty, a. [Compar. Knottier; superl. Knottiest.]
1. Full of knots; knotted; having many knots; as, knotty timber; a knotty rope.
2. Hard; rugged; as, a knotty head.[R.] Rewe.
3. Difficult; intricate; perplexed. A knotty point to which we now proceed Pope.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition
4 June 2025
(verb) bestow a quality on; “Her presence lends a certain cachet to the company”; “The music added a lot to the play”; “She brings a special atmosphere to our meetings”; “This adds a light note to the program”
The Boston Tea Party helped popularize coffee in America. The hefty tea tax imposed on the colonies in 1773 resulted in America switching from tea to coffee. In the lead up to the Revolutionary War, it became patriotic to sip java instead of tea. The Civil War made the drink more pervasive. Coffee helped energize tired troops, and drinking it became an expression of freedom.
