knot
/nɑt/noun, verb
knot is spelled K-N-O-T: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 5.2 times per million words in written English, the 10,843rd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, knot means “A looping of a piece of string or of any other long, flexible material that cannot be untangled without passing one or both ends of the material…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of knot is knots.
How many letters and syllables are in knot?
| Letters | 4: K-N-O-T |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 5.2 times per million words; the 10,843rd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Sounds like | |
| Rhymes with | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is knot?
Knot appears 5.2 times per million words in written English, the 10,843rd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce knot?
- UK /nɒt/
- US /nɑt/
Knot has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-knot.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with knot
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sounds like: not (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with knot?
The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as knot from its last stressed vowel (/ɑt/):
Spelled with the same letters in another order: tonk.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of knot
- knots plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- knotting participle, present
- knotted participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does knot mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A looping of a piece of string or of any other long, flexible material that cannot be untangled without passing one or both ends of the material through its loops.
Climbers must make sure that all knots are both secure and of types that will not weaken the rope.
- 2
A tangled clump of hair or similar.
The nurse was brushing knots from the protesting child's hair.
- 3
A maze-like pattern.
- 4
A non-self-intersecting closed curve in (e.g., three-dimensional) space that is an abstraction of a knot (in sense 1 above).
A knot can be defined as a non-self-intersecting broken line whose endpoints coincide: when such a knot is constrained to lie in a plane, then it is simply a polygon.
- 5
A difficult situation.
I got into a knot when I inadvertently insulted a policeman.
- 6
The whorl left in lumber by the base of a branch growing out of the tree's trunk.
When preparing to tell stories at a campfire, I like to set aside a pile of pine logs with lots of knots, since they burn brighter and make dramatic pops and cracks.
- 7
Local swelling in a tissue area, especially skin, often due to injury.
Jeremy had a knot on his head where he had bumped it on the bedframe.
- 8
A tightened and contracted part of a muscle that feels like a hard lump under the skin.
- 9
One of a variety of shore birds; red-breasted sandpiper (variously Calidris canutus or Tringa canutus).
verb
- 1
To form into a knot; to tie with a knot or knots.
We knotted the ends of the rope to keep it from unravelling.
- 2
To form wrinkles in the forehead, as a sign of concentration, concern, surprise, etc.
She knotted her brow in concentration while attempting to unravel the tangled strands.
- 3
To unite closely; to knit together.
- 4
obsoleterareTo entangle or perplex; to puzzle.
- 5
To form knots.
- 6
To knit knots for a fringe.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Knot in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | nœud , bulbe , nouer |
| German | Knoten , knoten , Fitz, Filz , Knäuel , Knutt |
| Portuguese | nó , dar um nó, fazer um nó , emaranhado , seixoeira , franzir |
| Spanish | nudo, ñudo , anudar, añudar , enmarañado , embrollo |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does knot come from?
From Middle English knotte, from Old English cnotta, from Proto-West Germanic *knottō, from Proto-Germanic *knuttô, *knudô (“knot”); probably ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gnod- (“to bind”). See also Old High German knoto (German Knoten, Dutch knot, Low German Knütte; also Old Norse knútr > Danish knude, Swedish knut, Norwegian knute, Faroese knútur, Icelandic hnútur; also Latin nōdus and its Romance descendants. Doublet of knout, node, and nodus.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).