Ere we knit the knot that can never be loosed.
Bp. Hall.
3. Something not easily solved; an intricacy; a difficulty; a
perplexity; a problem.
Knots worthy of solution.
Cowper.
A man shall be perplexed with knots, and problems of business, and
contrary affairs.
South.
4. A figure the lines of which are interlaced or intricately
interwoven, as in embroidery, gardening, etc. "Garden knots." Bacon.
Flowers worthy of paradise, which, not nice art In beds and curious
knots, but nature boon Poured forth profuse on hill, and dale, and
plain.
Milton.
5. A cluster of persons or things; a collection; a group; a hand; a
clique; as, a knot of politicians. "Knots of talk." Tennyson.
His ancient knot of dangerous adversaries.
Shak.
Palms in cluster, knots of Paradise.
Tennyson.
As they sat together in small, separate knots, they discussed
doctrinal and metaphysical points of belief.
Sir W. Scott.
6. A portion of a branch of a tree that forms a mass of woody fiber
running at an angle with the grain of the main stock and making a hard
place in the timber. A loose knot is generally the remains of a dead
branch of a tree covered by later woody growth.