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gnarled

UK/nɑː(ɹ)ld/US/nɑː(ɹ)ld/
adjectiveC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,426 of 15,258neutral

Gnarled means twisted and knotted with age. A gnarled oak, gnarled hands, a gnarled trunk.

It suits trees and old hands above all, and it is admiring more often than not — gnarled implies survival. In wood the knots come where branches were, which is why gnarled timber is hard to work and beautiful to look at. Shakespeare is the first recorded user.

Definitions of gnarled

  1. 1adjectivegnarledTwisted and knotted with age.C1

    “The farmer's gnarled hands had worked the land for sixty years.”

gnarled is a quality of shape.

Where it comes from

First recorded in Shakespeare in 1603, probably a variant of knarled, from knar, a knot in wood.

First attested Shakespeare 1603:

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

gnarled in the wild

  • Robert "Robbie" Conal is an American guerrilla poster artist noted for his gnarled, grotesque depictions of U.S. political figures of note.

    Robbie Conal

  • The gnarled enamel can cause the drill problems and in some cases the dentist must replace the drill burr.

    Gnarled enamel

  • The toughness of gnarled enamel varies from patient to patient and usually is nothing to be concerned about.

    Gnarled enamel

  • Bukavac was sometimes imagined as a six-legged monster with gnarled horns and bright blue eyes.

    Bukavac

  • The kaddi type is gnarled, thin, long and has fewer seeds.

    Byadagi chilli

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.