knotful

English

Etymology 1

knot +‎ -ful

Adjective

knotful (comparative more knotful, superlative most knotful)

1. Full of knots; knotty.
   • 1882, The Life of James Clerk Maxwell, page 649:

     Clear your coil of kinkings Into perfect plaiting, Locking loops and linkings Interpenetrating. Why should a man benighted, beduped, befooled, besotted, Call knotful knittings plighted, Not knotty but beknotted?

   • 2001, Lahsen Benaziza, Romancing Scheherazade: John Barth and the One thousand and one nights:

     Is't more knotful or bewildered than the skein o'life itself, that a good tale tangles the better to unsnarl?

Etymology 2

knot +‎ -ful

Noun

knotful (plural knotfuls)

1. A quantity that makes up a knot.
   • 1977, Ka-tzetnik, Sunrise over hell, page 200:

     The lice had eaten their way through her rotting flesh, leaving a skeleton double-row of teeth, and of a once proud neck, a knotful of tendons and veins.

   • 2007, Michael Freedland, Jolson: The Story of Al Jolson, page 51:

     Al was a knotful of butterflies by the time his music struck up and he had forced himself to dance out on to the stage apron.

   • 2014, Ken Grant, The Deer Mouse:

     The leather went whistling through TJ's hands, leaving thin, twin bands of neatly polished skin, until the branch tore loose and a knotful of splintered wood jammed there, bloodying both his palms.

   • 2016, Ashley Antoinette, Luxe Two: A La La Land Addiction:

     He pulled a knotful of hundred-dollar bills out of his pocket and handed one to her.