gnarly

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

From gnarl (“knot in wood”) + -y. The slang senses were particularly popularized by US surf culture in the 1970s.

"The gnarly trees, their twisted branches"--recommenced the top boy. — Three men on the bummel, Jerome K. (Jerome Klapka) Jerome
Out of one window I can see the garden, those mysterious deep-shaded arbors, the riotous old-fashioned flowers, and bushes and gnarly trees. — The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The garden of the days that are gone, wherein you should have planted kindness and consideration and thoughtfulness and manly courage to do right, will be grown up to weeds, that will blossom in your patches and in your rags and in your twisted, gnarly face that no one will love. — In Our Town, William Allen White

gnarled, knotted, knotty, knobbed

Type a word, a sentence, a book title, or a link to an English article. WordNet and the Classics answer.

Try

A library of classics · a vault of words · instant etymology & meaning

From: —

Output

Worksheet Type (multi-select)

Scope

Difficulty

Max questions

0 words Min 50 words / Max 2,000 words