making great mental demands; hard to comprehend or solve or believe; a baffling problem; I faced the knotty problem of what to have for breakfast; a problematic situation at home

[ Syn: baffling , elusive , problematic , problematical , tough ]

used of old persons or old trees; covered with knobs or knots; gnarled and knotted hands; a knobbed stick

[ Syn: gnarled , gnarly , knotted , knobbed ]

highly complex or intricate and occasionally devious; the Byzantine tax structure; Byzantine methods for holding on to his chairmanship; convoluted legal language; convoluted reasoning; the plot was too involved; a knotty problem; got his way by labyrinthine maneuvering; Oh, what a tangled web we weave- Sir Walter Scott; tortuous legal procedures; tortuous negotiations lasting for months

[ Syn: byzantine , convoluted , involved , tangled , tortuous ]

tangled in knots or snarls; a mass of knotted string; snarled thread

[ Syn: snarled , snarly ]