Knotty1. (superl.) Full of knots; knotted; having many knots; as, knotty timber; a knotty rope.
2. (superl.) Hard; rugged; as, a knotty head.
3. (superl.) Difficult; intricate; perplexed.
Thesaurus Entries
Byzantine, Herculean, abstruse, arduous, beyond one, brutal, burled, complex, complicated, crabbed, cramp, critical, daedal, delicate, demanding, difficile, difficult, effortful, elaborate, exacting, formidable, garbled, gnarled, gnarly, gordian, hairy, hard, hard to understand, hard-earned, hard-fought, intricate, involved, jawbreaking, jumbled, knobbed, knobbly, knobby, knoblike, knotted, knurled, knurly, laborious, labyrinthine, lumpy, mean, no picnic, nodal, noded, nodiform, nodose, nodular, nodulated, noduled, not easy, nubbled, nubbly, nubby, obfuscated, obscure, obscured, operose, overtechnical, perplexed, rigorous, rough, rugged, scrambled, set with thorns, severe, sophisticated, spiny, steep, sticky, strenuous, studded, terrible, thorny, ticklish, toilsome, torose, tough, tricky, tubercular, tuberculous, tuberose, tuberous, uphill, wicked