Word of the Day: May 7, 2009 ~ knot

knot (ˈnät) - noun

A knot is "an interlacement of the parts of one or more flexible bodies forming a lump or knob."

The word knot goes back ultimately to a prehistoric Germanic knudn-, whose underlying meaning was "round lump."  This only emerged in the English word (in such senses as 'point from which a branch has grown') in the Middle English period, but it can be seen in knoll (Old English), which is a derivative of the same base (the related German knolle means 'lump'). The Germanic form diversified into English and Dutch knot, German knoten, Swedish knut, and Danish knode (whose Old Norse ancestor knutr was borrowed into Russian as knut 'whip,' acquired by English as knout). Knit (from Old English) which originally meant "tie in knots," was derived in prehistoric West Germanic from knot.

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