gnarled

First attested Shakespeare 1603:[1]

Thy sharpe and sulpherous bolt Splits the vn-wedgable [unwedgable] and gnarled Oke [oak].

Measure for Measure, Act II, scene ii, line 116

Variant of knurled,[2][3] from knurl. Surface analysis is gnarl +‎ -ed, though gnarl is a later back-formation. Popular use by 19th century.[2]

gnarled (comparative more gnarled, superlative most gnarled)

1. Knotty and misshapen.
   • 1914, Louis Joseph Vance, chapter I, in Nobody, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, published 1915, OCLC 40817384:

     Three chairs of the steamer type, all maimed, comprised the furniture of this roof-garden, with […] on one of the copings a row of four red clay flower-pots filled with sun-baked dust from which gnarled and rusty stalks thrust themselves up like withered elfin limbs.

2. Made rough by age or hard work.

• gnarly

• gnarl

gnarled

1. simple past tense and past participle of gnarl (Etymology 1)

See gnarl (Etymology 2).

gnarled

1. simple past tense and past participle of gnarl (Etymology 2)

• Dangler, Glander, Legrand, dangler, rangled