gnarl

• Rhymes: -ɑː(r)l

Back-formation from gnarled.[1]

gnarl (plural gnarls)

1. A knot in wood; a large or hard knot, or a protuberance with twisted grain, on a tree.
2. Something resembling a knot in wood, such as in stone or limbs.
3. (mathematics) The average value of the magnitude squared of the curl of a vector field over a continuous path that is tangent to the vector field at every point. In mathematical notation, gnarl is represented by the lowercase Greek letter ξ.

• gnarly

gnarl (third-person singular simple present gnarls, present participle gnarling, simple past and past participle gnarled)

1. (transitive) To knot or twist something.

gnarl

1. Gnarled, knotty, twisted.

Onomatopoeia

gnarl (third-person singular simple present gnarls, present participle gnarling, simple past and past participle gnarled)

1. (intransitive) To snarl or growl; to gnar.
   • Shakespeare

     And wolves are gnarling who shall gnaw thee first.