Word.ws English Dictionary

in knots

in knots prepositional phrase: in a state of disagreement or confusion; at a standstill; in a deadlock.

Prepositional phrase

  1. In a state of disagreement or confusion; at a standstill; in a deadlock.
    • Centrists are in knots over whether to field one or several candidates to be the faces of their 2024 campaign.2023 July 5, Eddy Wax, “Liberals divided over 2024 EU election campaign strategy”, in Politico
    • The conservative stance made it difficult to advance the legislation, and the appropriations process ended up in knots despite a Republican pledge to consider and pass 12 individual spending bills.2023 December 15, Carl Hulse, “A ‘Historical and Hysterical’ House Flees After a Tumultuous Year”, in The New York Times

Origin of in knots

Compare knot (“difficult situation”).

Questions about in knots

What does in knots mean?
In knots means in a state of disagreement or confusion; at a standstill; in a deadlock.
What part of speech is in knots?
In knots is a prepositional phrase.

Words near in knots in the dictionary

  1. in jig time
  2. in keeping with
  3. in key
  4. in kid
  5. in kind
  6. in knots
  7. in labour
  8. in lamb
  9. in lame man's terms
  10. in lap
  11. in laps

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: in knots (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.

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