How to Use gnarled in a Sentence

gnarled

adjective
  • The sun has bleached the trunks to a bony, gnarled white.
    Matthew Shaer, New Republic, 5 Oct. 2017
  • His bike had flipped and came to rest a gnarled mess next to a guardrail on the side of the road.
    Charles Rabin, miamiherald, 15 Aug. 2017
  • The site of the gnarled hangar is fenced off and nearby streets are closed.
    Thao Nguyen, USA TODAY, 1 Feb. 2024
  • The trees look gnarled and knotty, like a desert bonsai.
    Rachel Fobar, National Geographic, 13 Dec. 2019
  • Prickly pear cactus and gnarled olive trees cling to the slope.
    Andrea Frazzetta, National Geographic, 29 Dec. 2019
  • One woman climbed the gnarled crown of a squat murici tree.
    Washington Post, 8 Apr. 2022
  • The drop is gnarled and monstrous, with enough sidechained noise to blow a blood vessel.
    Kat Bein, Billboard, 23 July 2019
  • Short, buff grasses grew in the valley along with a few gnarled trees.
    Kent Russell, Harper's Magazine, 11 May 2022
  • Keep an eye out for gnarled stands of ancient bristlecone pines along the way.
    Shawnté Salabert, Outside Online, 6 Nov. 2019
  • After a few moments, a whiskered head pokes out from a hole in the gnarled tree, then pulls back in.
    Washington Post, 13 Apr. 2022
  • Clusters of grapes dripped from gnarled vines, and garden gnomes stood watch all over the place.
    Jazmine Hughes, New York Times, 28 Sep. 2022
  • Moss covers the rock outcroppings, the gnarled and twisted root of the hemlocks and the boulders in the stream.
    Peter Marteka, courant.com, 17 May 2017
  • Once lined with the gnarled trunks and silvery-green foliage of olive trees, the area has been stripped nearly bare.
    Griff Witte, Washington Post, 15 Jan. 2018
  • The oil and gilding on silk depicts a gnarled cypress growing out of a pile of rocks.
    Alicia Ault, Smithsonian Magazine, 29 Jan. 2020
  • The head weighs a little over two pounds and easily cuts through gnarled wood.
    Emily Reed, Outside Online, 12 June 2018
  • Streets once lined with lush oak trees are now filled with gnarled branches and debris.
    Moriah Balingit, Washington Post, 18 Sep. 2017
  • Beyond the village, the group walked up Mamarut in high winds, stopping to rest in a screen of low, gnarled oaks.
    New York Times, 20 Apr. 2022
  • Guards paced dirt roads, batons in hand, and spat out commands under the gnarled trees.
    Keren Blankfeld, Smithsonian Magazine, 22 Jan. 2024
  • His white hair had not been cut for many months and hung down over his gnarled ears and forehead like a forkful of hay.
    Frank C. Hibben, Outdoor Life, 13 Mar. 2023
  • With wide, cylindrical trunks and gnarled branches, the trees appear to have been yanked out of the ground, flipped over and shoved back in, roots in the air.
    Amina Khan, latimes.com, 11 June 2018
  • The route drops back down to the desert floor, slipping among picnic sites in an unassuming gnarled path.
    Mare Czinar, azcentral, 28 Nov. 2019
  • On the first hole of the course — which is really the eighth hole of the club’s North Course — there’s a broken and gnarled oak tree about 80 yards up the right side of the fairway.
    Carlos Monarrez, Detroit Free Press, 25 June 2019
  • The trees are famed for their gnarled appearance and have been featured in Western art.
    Michael Kohn | The Bulletin, oregonlive, 15 Dec. 2022
  • The gnarled branches of a 1,600-year-old juniper tree form a fire-breathing dragon.
    Hikari Hida, New York Times, 16 Apr. 2023
  • Dating back to the turn of the century, this old coaching inn is named for the gnarled old vine that shades its terrace.
    Condé Nast Traveler, 22 Sep. 2017
  • Naturally, there is a hand: a gnarled, green claw that emerges from the depths of the closet, like a ghost of the past reaching into the present.
    Carolina A. Miranda, Los Angeles Times, 9 Nov. 2023
  • The archway at the entrance to the neighborhood had been demolished; the gnarled hull of a black car sat nearby.
    Hiba Yazbek, New York Times, 24 Dec. 2023
  • Most notably, a large, gnarled tree in the wooded area known as Squirrels Inn toppled.
    Author: Kat Sorensen, Anchorage Daily News, 3 July 2018
  • Its surface bears the shadow of the gnarled plant that’s next to it on which rests the shadow of an otherwise unseen bird.
    Christopher Byrd, Washington Post, 27 Feb. 2020
  • Under the canopy of the enormous olive tree that shades his home, Daniel Gerwin’s 11-year-old son ascends the tree’s gnarled trunk like an expert climber while his brother, 7, reads a book a few feet away inside the house.
    Lisa Boone, Los Angeles Times, 26 Feb. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'gnarled.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: