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Knot

//nɒt// noun, verb, slang

Definitions

Noun

1
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."
2
One of a variety of shore birds; red-breasted sandpiper (variously Calidris canutus or Tringa canutus).
"My foot-boy shall eat pheasants, calvered salmons, / Knots, godwits, lampreys: I myself will have / The beards of barbels, served instead of salads […]"
3
a sandpiper that breeds in the Arctic and winters in the Southern Hemisphere wordnet
4
A tangled clump of hair or similar.
"The nurse was brushing knots from the protesting child's hair."
5
any of various fastenings formed by looping and tying a rope (or cord) upon itself or to another rope or to another object wordnet

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6
A maze-like pattern.
"Flowers worthy of paradise, which, not nice art / In beds and curious knots, but nature boon / Poured forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain."
7
soft lump or unevenness in a yarn; either an imperfection or created by design wordnet
8
A non-self-intersecting closed curve in (e.g., three-dimensional) space that is an abstraction of a knot (in sense 1 above).
"A knot can be defined as a non-self-intersecting broken line whose endpoints coincide: when such a knot is constrained to lie in a plane, then it is simply a polygon."
9
a tight cluster of people or things wordnet
10
A difficult situation.
"I got into a knot when I inadvertently insulted a policeman."
11
something twisted and tight and swollen wordnet
12
The whorl left in lumber by the base of a branch growing out of the tree's trunk.
"When preparing to tell stories at a campfire, I like to set aside a pile of pine logs with lots of knots, since they burn brighter and make dramatic pops and cracks."
13
a hard cross-grained round piece of wood in a board where a branch emerged wordnet
14
Local swelling in a tissue area, especially skin, often due to injury.
"Jeremy had a knot on his head where he had bumped it on the bedframe."
15
(of ships and wind) a unit of speed equal to one nautical mile per hour or about 1.15 statute miles per hour wordnet
16
A tightened and contracted part of a muscle that feels like a hard lump under the skin.
17
A protuberant joint in a plant.
18
Any knob, lump, swelling, or protuberance.
"[T]he Queen who sat / With lips severely placid, felt the knot / Climb in her throat, […]"
19
The swelling of the bulbus glandis in members of the dog family, Canidae.
20
The point on which the action of a story depends; the gist of a matter.
"the knot of the tale"
21
A node (point at which the lines of a funicular machine meet from different angular directions)
22
A kind of epaulet; a shoulder knot.
23
A group of people or things.
"his ancient knot of dangerous adversarie"
24
A bond of union; a connection; a tie.
"[I come] to crave a league of amity, And lastly, to confirm that amity With nuptial knot […]"
25
A unit of speed, equal to one nautical mile per hour.
"Cedric claimed his old yacht could make 12 knots."
26
A unit of indicated airspeed, calibrated airspeed, or equivalent airspeed, which varies in its relation to the unit of speed so as to compensate for the effects of different ambient atmospheric conditions on aircraft performance.
"In the early stages of reentry, due to the extremely-rarefied air at these altitudes, the space shuttle flew at only one to a few knots equivalent airspeed, even when its actual speed was many thousands of knots."
27
A nautical mile.
28
The bulbus glandis. slang

Verb

1
To form into a knot; to tie with a knot or knots. transitive
"We knotted the ends of the rope to keep it from unravelling."
2
tie or fasten into a knot wordnet
3
To form wrinkles in the forehead, as a sign of concentration, concern, surprise, etc. transitive
"She knotted her brow in concentration while attempting to unravel the tangled strands."
4
tangle or complicate wordnet
5
To unite closely; to knit together.
"The party of the papists in England are become more knotted, both in dependence towards Spain, and amongst themselves."

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6
make into knots; make knots out of wordnet
7
To entangle or perplex; to puzzle. obsolete, rare, transitive
8
To form knots. intransitive
9
To knit knots for a fringe. intransitive

Etymology

Etymology 1

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 spaced at one every ¹⁄₁₂₀ of a mile.

Etymology 2

Etymology 3

Supposed to be derived from the name of King Canute, with whom the bird was a favourite article of food. See the specific epithet canutus.

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