Word.ws English Dictionary

gnarl

/nɑː(ɹ)l/

gnarl noun: a knot in wood; a knurl or a protuberance with twisted grain, on a tree.

gnarl: a knot in wood; a knurl or a protuberance with twisted grain, on a tree
Image: SriMesh, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

gnarl (plural gnarls)

  1. A knot in wood; a knurl or a protuberance with twisted grain, on a tree.
  2. Something resembling a knot in wood, such as in stone or limbs.

Verb (1)

gnarl (third-person singular simple present gnarls, present participle gnarling, simple past and past participle gnarled)

  1. (transitive) To knot or twist something.

Adjective

gnarl

  1. Gnarled, knotty, twisted.

Verb (2)

gnarl (third-person singular simple present gnarls, present participle gnarling, simple past and past participle gnarled)

  1. (intransitive) To snarl or growl; to gnar.
    • And wolves are gnarling who shall gnaw thee first.1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...

gnarl meaning in Urdu and Thai

gnarl in Urdu

درختی گانٹھ

gnarl in Thai

knot in wood
ตาไม้ dtaa-máai

Forms of gnarl

Noun
pluralgnarls
Verb
third-person singular presentgnarls
present participlegnarling
past participlegnarled
pastgnarled

Origin of gnarl

Back-formation from gnarled.

Onomatopoeic.

Words formed from gnarl

Words that rhyme with gnarl

Questions about gnarl

What does gnarl mean?
Gnarl means a knot in wood; a knurl or a protuberance with twisted grain, on a tree.
What is gnarl in Urdu?
Gnarl in Urdu is درختی گانٹھ. See Gnarl meaning in Urdu.
What part of speech is gnarl?
Gnarl can be a noun, a verb or an adjective.
How do you pronounce gnarl?
Gnarl is pronounced /nɑː(ɹ)l/.
What is the plural of gnarl?
The plural of gnarl is gnarls.

Words near gnarl in the dictionary

  1. gnaphalium
  2. gnaphaliums
  3. gnaphosid
  4. gnaphosids
  5. gnar
  6. gnarl
  7. gnarled
  8. gnarledly
  9. gnarley
  10. gnarlier
  11. gnarliest

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gnarl (page history and authors); gnarl (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-gnarl.wav.

Cite this entry: “gnarl.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gnarl. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.