How to use knotty in a sentence
12 example sentences · adjective
Knotty means of string or something stringlike: full of, or tied up, in knots. Example: “It’s the knottier questions that elicit his cleaving judgments.”
Examples of knotty by meaning
adjectiveOf a part of the body, a tree, etc.: full of knots (knobs or swellings); gnarled, knobbly.
- a knotty pine
adjectiveComplicated or tricky; complex, difficult.
- a knotty problem
- It’s the knottier questions that elicit his cleaving judgments.2016 October 3, Tad Friend, “Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny”, in The New Yorker
More sentences with knotty
- He limps slowly, his right leg below the knee as knotty and bulbed as an old root.2008 February 21, Michael Wilson, “Home in Box Had Its Problems; Alternative Does, Too”, in New York Times. From the entry bulbed
- To the blue cords fastening the bent coudière around his elbow were added knotty strings of dark red.1991, Geraldine McCaughrean, “Out of the Pit”, in Vainglory, London: Jonathan Cape, →ISBN, page 108. From the entry coudière
- He was huge, raw-boned, knotty, long of body and long of leg, with the head of a war charger.1917, Zane Gray, Wildfire, page 35. From the entry of
- "Because you are built as absurdly as a jumping-jack," sneered the horse, rolling his knotty eyes in a vicious manner.1904, L. Frank Baum, chapter 13, in The Marvelous Land of Oz. From the entry jumping-jack
- It was thick, knotty, printed in one of those horrific fonts that the early generations of Mac computers offered back in the middish '80s.2019, Gregory McNamee, “Of Rock 'n' Roll and Corn Laws: A Few Words on Charles Bowden”, in Bill Broyles, Bruce J. Dinges, editors…. From the entry middish
- Their roles include managing families’ wealth, administering their assets and often other services, from the mundane (paying bills) to the knotty (succession-planning).2018 December 15, “Family offices become financial titans. The growing ranks of billionaires' in-house investment teams”, in The Economist. From the entry family office
- "There's a door hidden in that knotty pine wall over there that leads to his red room of pain and submission,” she jeered.2014, Kris Calvert, Sex, Lies & Lipstick. From the entry red room
- The dwarf plucked the bird from its cachette, throttled it with a twist of his knotty hands, and held it up for the gunman to admire.1982, TC Boyle, Water Music, Penguin, published 2006, page 49. From the entry cachette
- But in addition, Johnathan, as the mocked parent, intended to see that the bed was as hard, knotty and acanaceous as the father knew how to make it.1921, William Dudley Pelley, The Fog: A Novel, page 276. From the entry acanaceous
Meaning of knotty
- adjective Of string or something stringlike: full of, or tied up, in knots.
- adjective Of a part of the body, a tree, etc.: full of knots (knobs or swellings); gnarled, knobbly.
- adjective Complicated or tricky; complex, difficult.
Questions about knotty in a sentence
- How do you use knotty in a sentence?
- Knotty is used as an adjective. For example: “It’s the knottier questions that elicit his cleaving judgments.”
- What is a short sentence with knotty?
- “a knotty pine”
- What does knotty mean?
- Knotty means of string or something stringlike: full of, or tied up, in knots.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: knotty (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this page: “How to use knotty in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/knotty. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.