knot

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   any of various fastenings formed by looping and tying a rope or cord upon itself or to another rope or to another object

   They made a sturdy knot while tying up the boat.

2. 2
   noun

   a tight cluster of people or things

   A small knot of parishioners listened to the sermon.

3. 3
   noun

   something twisted and tight and swollen

   their muscles stood out in knots

4. 4
   noun

   a hard cross-grained round piece of wood in a board where a branch emerged

   the saw buckled when it hit a knot

5. 5
   verb

   tie or fasten into a knot

   knot the shoelaces

6. 6
   verb

   make into knots

   make knots out of

7. 7
   noun

   A looping of a piece of string or of any other long, flexible material that cannot be untangled without passing one or both ends of the material through its loops.

   Climbers must make sure that all knots are both secure and of types that will not weaken the rope.

8. 8
   noun

   A tangled clump of hair or similar.

   The nurse was brushing knots from the protesting child's hair.

Etymology

From Middle English knotte, from Old English cnotta, from Proto-West Germanic *knottō, from Proto-Germanic *knuttô, *knudô (“knot”); probably ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gnod- (“to bind”). See also Old High German knoto (German Knoten, Dutch knot, Low German Knütte; also Old Norse knútr > Danish knude, Swedish knut, Norwegian knute, Faroese knútur, Icelandic hnútur; also Latin nōdus and its Romance descendants. Doublet of knout, node, and nodus. * (unit of speed): From the practice of counting the number of knots in the logline (as it is paid out) in a standard time. Traditionally spa…