tangled in a confused mass; "pushed back her tangled hair"; "the tangled ropes"
knotty -
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"
difficult,
hard not easy; requiring great physical or mental effort to accomplish or comprehend or endure; "a difficult task"; "nesting places on the cliffs are difficult of access"; "difficult times"; "why is it so hard for you to keep a secret?"
knotty -
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"
complex complicated in structure; consisting of interconnected parts; "a complex set of variations based on a simple folk melody"; "a complex mass of diverse laws and customs"
knotty -
used of old persons or old trees; covered with knobs or knots; "gnarled and knotted hands"; "a knobbed stick"
