[1] : The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48

knotty \knot"ty\, a. compar. knottier; superl. knottiest.
   1. full of knots; knotted; having many knots; as, knotty
      timber; a knotty rope.
      1913 webster

   2. hard; rugged; as, a knotty head. r. --rewe.
      1913 webster

   3. difficult; intricate; perplexed.
      1913 webster

            a knotty point to which we now proceed --pope.
      1913 webster
see also:
knottier knottiest 

[2] : WordNet (r) 2.0

knotty
     adj 1: making great mental demands; hard to comprehend or solve; "a
            baffling problem"; "i faced the knotty problem of what
            to have for breakfast"; "a problematic situation at
            home" syn: baffling, problematic, problematical
     2: used of old persons or old trees; covered with knobs or
        knots; "gnarled and knotted hands"; "a knobbed stick"
        syn: gnarled, gnarly, knotted, knobbed
     3: highly involved or intricate; "the byzantine tax structure";
        "convoluted legal language"; "convoluted reasoning";
        "intricate needlework"; "an intricate labyrinth of refined
        phraseology"; "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" syn: byzantine, convoluted, intricate, involved,
         labyrinthine, tangled, tortuous
     also: knottiest, knottier
see also:
baffling problematic problematical gnarled gnarly knotted 
knobbed byzantine convoluted intricate involved 
labyrinthine tangled tortuous knottiest knottier 

[3] : Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0

88 moby thesaurus words for "knotty":
   byzantine, herculean, abstruse, arduous, beyond one, brutal,
   burled, complex, complicated, crabbed, cramp, critical, daedal,
   delicate, demanding, difficile, difficult, effortful, elaborate,
   exacting, formidable, garbled, gnarled, gnarly, gordian, hairy,
   hard, hard to understand, hard-earned, hard-fought, intricate,
   involved, jawbreaking, jumbled, knobbed, knobbly, knobby, knoblike,
   knotted, knurled, knurly, laborious, labyrinthine, lumpy, mean,
   no picnic, nodal, noded, nodiform, nodose, nodular, nodulated,
   noduled, not easy, nubbled, nubbly, nubby, obfuscated, obscure,
   obscured, operose, overtechnical, perplexed, rigorous, rough,
   rugged, scrambled, set with thorns, severe, sophisticated, spiny,
   steep, sticky, strenuous, studded, terrible, thorny, ticklish,
   toilsome, torose, tough, tricky, tubercular, tuberculous, tuberose,
   tuberous, uphill, wicked

Knotty >> K Words
Knotty, definition of term: Knotty
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