Crossword clues for gnarled
gnarled
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Gnarled \Gnarled\, a. Knotty; full of knots or gnarls; twisted; crossgrained.
The unwedgeable and gnarl['e]d oak.
--Shak.
Gnarl \Gnarl\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Gnarled; p. pr. & vb. n. Gnarling.] [From older gnar, prob. of imitative origin; cf. G. knarren, knurren. D. knorren, Sw. knorra, Dan. knurre.] To growl; to snarl.
And wolves are gnarling who shall gnaw thee first.
--Shak.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
the source of the group of words that includes gnarl (v.), gnarl (n.), gnarly is Shakespeare's use of gnarled in 1603:\n\nThy sharpe and sulpherous bolt Splits the vn-wedgable and gnarled Oke.
["Measure for Measure," II.ii.116]
\nOED and Barnhart call it a variant of knurled, from Middle English knar "knot in wood" (late 14c.), originally "a rock, a stone;" of uncertain origin. "(Gnarled) occurs in one passage of Shakes. (for which the sole authority is the folio of 1623), whence it came into general use in the nineteenth century" [OED].Wiktionary
WordNet
Usage examples of "gnarled".
Through the gnarled limbs Aganippe saw two great rounded folds of earth, with a dark cleft between them, topped by a tuft of trees and brush.
The forest was dominated by plants that could extract moisture from the air: Lichen coated the gnarled bark of the araucaria trees, and even the low magnolia shrubs dripped with moss.
In the past six months Berel has been gaining back some of his old gnarled strength.
Mrs Ellis stroked it with her gnarled hands, and Cec found himself close to tears.
Its head darted forward, golden eyes ablaze, and the black and gnarled branches of its feeder arms, the four small arms growing from the sides of its head, reached out to grab him and drag him toward those teeth.
Bryndel accepted the gnarled old hand, discovering that the gaffer was surprisingly strong despite his obvious age.
My eyes chanced to light upon the enormous gnarled trunk of the gingko tree which cast its huge branches over us.
Would he be a reclusive, gnarled bachelor, eccentric, shrunken, invalidish, tended only by his bored Armsmen?
The tree, below the hill, halfway to the intersection, was a gnarled old kiawe tree filling up its little field, where on his trips up here he had gone before to sit, and where the brown bottles of his past trips lay in the grass.
Laying a gnarled finger alongside his bent nose, he slipped the other knobbly hand beneath his coat, where he kept his knives.
He had stridden over them for hours and had found delectable things--a new lochan with trout rising among yellow water-lilies, a glen full of alders and singing waters, a hollow with old gnarled firs in it and the ruins of a cottage pink with foxgloves.
He watched Orval drag on the last of his cigarette close to his fingers, their joints gnarled and yellow from nicotine.
Once that purchase was complete, he began gathering up other vegetables, ripe pears, a gnarled wedge of pecorino, and a crusty loaf of pane toscano.
Crickets chirped in the old, gnarled pohutukawa tree as he strode past and headed up the narrow footpath to let himself in the kitchen door.
Small, vivacious brown wrens scolded the others as they carried twigs and dried moss to a nest cavity in an ancient, gnarled apple tree, proving its youthful fecundity with its flock of pink blooms.