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To free from obscurity or ambiguity; to relive of perplexity; to make perspicuous. Many knotty points there are Which all discuss, but few can clear. Prior.

A short knotted rope formerly used as an instrument of punishment in the navy. Ham. Nav. Encyc. Colt's tooth, an imperfect or superfluous tooth in young horses. -- To cast one's colt's tooth, to cease from youthful wantonness. "Your colt's tooth is not cast yet." Shak. -- To have a colt's tooth, to be wanton. Chaucer…

or brownish red color, parasitic on roots of other plants, and having curious jointed or knotted roots not unlike some kinds of coral. See Illust. under Coralloid. -- Coral snake. (Zo) (a) A small, venomous, Brazilian snake (Elaps corallinus), coral-red, with black bands. (b) A small, harmless, South American snake (T…

A Franciscan; -- so called in France from the girdle of knotted cord worn by all Franciscans.

Knotty; difficult. [R.] Care being taken not to add any of the cramp reasons for this opinion. Coleridge.

To explain; to unfold. [Obs.] Like Solon's self explatest the knotty laws. B. Jonson.

g to pressure; not stiff or brittle. When the splitting wind Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks. Shak.

To attach (a fishhook) to a line or snell, as by knotting the line around the shank of the hook.

Knotty; full of knots or gnarls; twisted; crossgrained. The unwedgeable and gnarléd oak. Shak.

Full of knots; knotty; twisted; crossgrained.

Golden seal (Bot.), a perennial ranunculaceous herb (Hydrastis Canadensis), with a thick knotted rootstock and large rounded leaves. -- Golden sulphide, or sulphuret, of antimony (Chem.), the pentasulphide of antimony, a golden or orange yellow powder. -- Golden warbler (Zoöl.), a common American wood warbler (Dendro…

A wiseacre; a person deficient in wisdom; -- so called from Gotham, in Nottinghamshire, England, noted for some pleasant blunders. Bp. Morton.

Having joints; articulated; full of nodes; knotty; as, a jointed doll; jointed structure. "The jointed herbage." J. Philips. -- Joint"ed*ly, adv.

Knotty; rough; figuratively, rough in temper. Fuller. -- Knag"gi*ness, n.

Knotted. See Gnarled.

Knotty; gnarled. The knarred and crooked cedar knees. Longfellow.

Knotty; gnarled. Chaucer.

A linsey-woolsey fabric having a rough knotted surface on the right side; used for women's dresses.

to knock the head against a post; to knock a lamp off the table. When heroes knock their knotty heads together. Rowe.

nt on which the action of a story depends; the gist of a matter. [Obs.] I shoulde to the knotte condescend, And maken of her walking soon an end. Chaucer.