knot

A knot is what you get when you tie a rope or a lace into itself and pull it tight. The one in your shoelaces, the twist at the neck of a bin bag, the tangle in a chain that has been loose in a drawer for a year.

You can knot things as well as tie knots in them: she knotted the two ends together, his hair was knotted with salt. A knot in a plank is the hard dark circle where a branch once grew, and it will blunt a drill. At sea and in the air a knot is a speed — one nautical mile an hour — so a ship doing twenty knots is not doing twenty knots an hour; the hour is already inside the word. Feelings get them too: a knot in your stomach before an interview, your stomach in knots all morning. And to tie the knot is to get married.

Phrases it lives in

• tie the knot — get married, said lightly and usually by somebody else
• tie yourself in knots — get hopelessly confused trying to explain something
• a knot in your stomach — a tight, anxious feeling

Also practised as

• nounA tangle where a line ties into itself.