0 (of a problem or difficulty) complicated and difficult to solve: --
It was a very knotty problem.
1 with a lot of knots: --
2 (of a tree or piece of wood) covered with hard, dark areas where branches were joined to the tree: --
knotty pine
Although the election of 283 new division members26 resurrected the divisions, conflicting views about the nature and role of the divisions continued to pose a knotty problem.
I think, with him, that milk is the knotty problem that will have to be solved some time.
A more knotty question-that of the role of women in male industrial workers' households who worked in agriculture or petty commodity production or trade or retail-was not raised at all.
The text opens with an overview of colonial chieftaincy which is as lucid and concise an exposition of a notoriously knotty subject as one is likely to encounter.
However, inasmuch as the complexity of enhancement techniques makes providing general policy challenging, a new regulatory body needs to be created to deal with the myriad of knotty issues.
Conceptually she deals with the knotty puzzle mentioned earlier by dropping the idea of disapproval in favour of the sentiments of affirmation or acceptance which mark toleration as recognition.
Researchers must trust the data more and the theories less, and build integrative rather than exclusionary models if they hope to resolve these knotty problems effectively.
Perhaps, the answer to the knotty problem of maintaining competency lies in a more holistic view.