Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Knurled; gnarly; lumpy: as, a knurly apple.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • Full of knots; hard; tough; hence, capable of enduring or resisting much.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Gnarled or knotty. Hard and misshapen

Etymologies

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Examples

  • And I remembered how one day, after we had come to live near the Mississipi, I floated down, down, hundreds of miles, with a wild fraternity of knurly giants, the boatmen of the Mississipi, and how a dear old man welcomed me back, as if from the grave.

    How I Found Livingstone Henry Morton 2004

  • My face had always been askew somehow, but now it grew beyond itself, twisted and knurly.

    Change Me Into Zeus’s Daughter Barbara Robinette Moss 2001

  • My face had always been askew somehow, but now it grew beyond itself, twisted and knurly.

    Change Me Into Zeus’s Daughter Barbara Robinette Moss 2001

  • And he does it all from the point of view of an early (_a knurly_) Christian.

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 38, December, 1860 Various

  • "Well, I swow!" ejaculated the Cap'n, rubbing his knurly forefinger under his nose, and glancing first at the parrots and then at the lady.

    The Skipper and the Skipped Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul Holman Day 1900

  • With his knurly forefinger at his puckered forehead he sat and pondered.

    The Skipper and the Skipped Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul Holman Day 1900

  • These old apple-trees make very charming bits of the world in October; the leaves cling to them later than to the other trees, and the turf keeps short and green underneath; and in this grass, which was frosty in the morning, and has not quite dried yet, you can find some cold little cider apples, with one side knurly, and one shiny bright red or yellow cheek.

    Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches Sarah Orne Jewett 1879

  • The bumptious, impudent, selfish, "hateful" boy may become a man of force, of learning, of decided capacity, even of polish and good manners, and score success, so that those who know him say how remarkable it is that such a "knurly" lad should have turned out so well.

    That Fortune Charles Dudley Warner 1864

  • The bumptious, impudent, selfish, "hateful" boy may become a man of force, of learning, of decided capacity, even of polish and good manners, and score success, so that those who know him say how remarkable it is that such a "knurly" lad should have turned out so well.

    The Complete Project Gutenberg Writings of Charles Dudley Warner Charles Dudley Warner 1864

  • Shakespeare, in _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, represents him as “a very Shetlander among the gossamer-winged, dainty-limbed fairies, strong enough to knock all their heads together, a rough, knurly-limbed, fawn-faced, shock-pated, mischievous little urchin.”

    Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 Ebenezer Cobham Brewer 1853

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