gnarl

1. 1.

   something twisted and tight and swollen

   “their muscles stood out in knots”

   “the old man's fists were two great gnarls”

   “his stomach was in knots”

   Synonymsknot

   Broaderdistorted shape

Other forms of gnarl

plural

gnarls·

past tense

gnarled·

present participle

gnarling·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about gnarl

What does gnarl mean?

gnarl means "twist into a state of deformity". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in gnarl?

gnarl has 1 syllable: gnarl. In IPA it is /ˈnɑɹl/.

What is another word for gnarl?

Close synonyms include murmur, mutter, grumble, croak, knot. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is gnarl a common word?

gnarl is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.