Knot vs. Bow — What's the Difference?

A knot is an intentional complication in cordage which may be practical or decorative, or both. Practical knots are classified by function, including hitches, bends, loop knots, and splices: a hitch fastens a rope to another object; a bend fastens two ends of a rope to each another; a loop knot is any knot creating a loop; and splice denotes any multi-strand knot, including bends and loops.

A knot tied with two loops and two loose ends, used especially for tying shoelaces and decorative ribbons

A fastening made by looping a piece of string, rope, or something similar on itself and tightening it

A weapon for shooting arrows, typically made of a curved piece of wood joined at both ends by a taut string.

A tangled mass in something such as hair or wool.

A long, partially curved rod with horsehair stretched along its length, used for playing the violin and other stringed instruments.

A knob, protuberance, or node in a stem, branch, or root.

A curved stroke forming part of a letter (e.g. b, p).

An unpleasant feeling of tightness or tension in a part of the body

A metal ring forming the handle of a key or pair of scissors.

A small tightly packed group of people

An act of bending the head or upper body as a sign of respect or greeting

A unit of speed equivalent to one nautical mile per hour, used especially of ships, aircraft, or winds.

The front end of a ship

A small, relatively short-billed sandpiper, with a reddish-brown or blackish breast in the breeding season.

Play (a stringed instrument or music) using a bow

Fasten with a knot

Bend the head or upper part of the body as a sign of respect, greeting, or shame

Make (something, especially hair) tangled

Bend with age or under pressure

Cause (a muscle) to become tense and hard.

(of a new film or product) be premiered or launched

A compact intersection of interlaced material, such as cord, ribbon, or rope.

The front section of a ship or boat.

A fastening made by tying together lengths of material, such as rope, in a prescribed way.

Either of the sides of this front section

A decorative bow of ribbon, fabric, or braid.

The oar or the person wielding the oar closest to the bow in a racing shell.

A unifying bond, especially a marriage bond.

An inclination of the head or body, as in greeting, consent, courtesy, acknowledgment, submission, or veneration.

A tight cluster of persons or things:a knot of onlookers.

A bent, curved, or arched object.

A feeling of tightness:a knot of fear in my stomach.

A weapon consisting of a curved, flexible strip of material, especially wood, strung taut from end to end and used to launch arrows.

A complex problem.

An archer.

A hard place or lump, especially on a tree, at a point from which a stem or branch grows.

Archers considered as a group.

The round, often darker cross section of such a lump as it appears on a piece of cut lumber.Also called node.

(Music) A rod having horsehair drawn tightly between its two raised ends, used in playing instruments of the violin and viol families.

A protuberant growth or swelling in a tissue:a knot in a gland.

A stroke made by this rod.

(Nautical)A division on a log line used to measure the speed of a ship.

A knot usually having two loops and two ends; a bowknot.

Abbr. kn. or kt.A unit of speed, one nautical mile per hour, approximately 1.85 kilometers (1.15 statute miles) per hour.

A frame for the lenses of a pair of eyeglasses.

A distance of one nautical mile.

The part of such a frame passing over the ear.

(Mathematics)A closed loop that is embedded in three-dimensional space and that can be intertwined with or tangled in itself, but that cannot intersect itself.

A rainbow.

Either of two migratory sandpipers of the genus Calidris that breed in Arctic regions, especially the red knot.

An oxbow.

To tie in or fasten with a knot or knots.

To bend or curve downward; stoop.

To snarl or entangle.

To incline the body or head or bend the knee in greeting, consent, courtesy, acknowledgment, submission, or veneration.

To cause to form a knot or knots.

To yield in defeat or out of courtesy; submit.

To form a knot or knots.

To bend (the head, knee, or body) to express greeting, consent, courtesy, acknowledgment, submission, or veneration.

To become snarled or entangled.

To convey (greeting, for example) by bending the body.

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.

To escort deferentially

A tangled clump.

To cause to acquiesce; submit.

A maze-like pattern.

To overburden

(mathematics) A non-self-intersecting closed curve in (e.g., three-dimensional) space that is an abstraction of a knot (in sense 1 above). Category:en:Curves

To bend (something) into the shape of a bow.

A difficult situation.

(Music) To play (a stringed instrument) with a bow.

The whorl left in lumber by the base of a branch growing out of the tree's trunk.

To bend into a curve or bow.

Local swelling in a tissue area, especially skin, often due to injury.

(Music) To play a stringed instrument with a bow.

A tightened and contracted part of a muscle that feels like a hard lump under the skin.

A weapon made of a curved piece of wood or other flexible material whose ends are connected by a string, used for shooting arrows.

A protuberant joint in a plant.

A curved bend in a rod or planar surface, or in a linear formation such as a river (see oxbow).

Any knob, lump, swelling, or protuberance.

A rod with horsehair (or an artificial substitute) stretched between the ends, used for playing various stringed musical instruments.

The swelling of the bulbus glandis in members of the dog family, Canidae.

A stringed instrument (chordophone), consisting of a stick with a single taut cord stretched between the ends, most often played by plucking.

The point on which the action of a story depends; the gist of a matter.

A type of knot with two loops, used to tie together two cords such as shoelaces or apron strings, and frequently used as decoration, such as in gift-wrapping.

(engineering) A node.

Anything bent or curved, such as a rainbow.

A kind of epaulet; a shoulder knot.

The U-shaped piece which goes around the neck of an ox and fastens it to the yoke.

A group of people or things.

Either of the arms of a pair of spectacles, running from the side of the lens to behind the wearer's ear.

A bond of union; a connection; a tie.

Any instrument consisting of an elastic rod, with ends connected by a string, employed for giving reciprocating motion to a drill, or for preparing and arranging hair, fur, etc., used by hatters.

A unit of speed, equal to one nautical mile per hour. (From the practice of counting the number of knots in the log-line (as it is paid out) in a standard time. Traditionally spaced at one every 120 of a mile.)

(nautical) A crude sort of quadrant formerly used for taking the sun's altitude at sea.

(aviation) A unit of indicated airspeed, calibrated airspeed, or equivalent airspeed, which varies in its relation to the unit of speed so as to compensate for the effects of different ambient atmospheric conditions on aircraft performance.

(saddlery) Two pieces of wood which form the arched forward part of a saddletree.

(nautical) A nautical mile.

The part of a key that is not inserted into the lock and that is used to turn the key.

(slang) The bulbus glandis.

A gesture, usually showing respect, made by inclining the head or bending forward at the waist; a reverence

(fandom) In omegaverse fiction, a bulbus glandis-like structure on the penis of a male alpha, which ties him to an omega during intercourse.

(nautical) The front of a boat or ship.

One of a variety of shore birds; red-breasted sandpiper (variously Calidris canutus or Tringa canutus).

(rowing) The rower that sits in the seat closest to the bow of the boat.

(transitive) To form into a knot; to tie with a knot or knots.

Obsolete spelling of bough

(transitive) To form wrinkles in the forehead, as a sign of concentration, concern, surprise, etc.

C|en|Foods}} {{alternative form of bao; any of several Chinese buns and breads

To unite closely; to knit together.

To play music on (a stringed) instrument using a bow.

To entangle or perplex; to puzzle.

(intransitive) To become bent or curved.

(intransitive) To form knots.

(transitive) To make something bend or curve.

(intransitive) To knit knots for a fringe.

To exercise powerful or controlling influence over; to bend, figuratively; to turn; to incline.

A fastening together of the parts or ends of one or more threads, cords, ropes, etc., by any one of various ways of tying or entangling.

(intransitive) To bend oneself as a gesture of respect or deference.

A bond of union; a connection; a tie.

To debut.

Something not easily solved; an intricacy; a difficulty; a perplexity; a problem.

(intransitive) To defer (to something).

A figure the lines of which are interlaced or intricately interwoven, as in embroidery, gardening, etc.

(transitive) To give a direction, indication, or command to by bowing.

A cluster of persons or things; a collection; a group; a hand; a clique; as, a knot of politicians.

To cause to deviate from straightness; to bend; to inflect; to make crooked or curved.

A portion of a branch of a tree that forms a mass of woody fiber running at an angle with the grain of the main stock and making a hard place in the timber. A loose knot is generally the remains of a dead branch of a tree covered by later woody growth.

To exercise powerful or controlling influence over; to bend, figuratively; to turn; to incline.

A knob, lump, swelling, or protuberance.

To bend or incline, as the head or body, in token of respect, gratitude, assent, homage, or condescension.

A protuberant joint in a plant.

To cause to bend down; to prostrate; to depress,; to crush; to subdue.

The point on which the action of a story depends; the gist of a matter.

To express by bowing; as, to bow one's thanks.

See Node.

To bend; to curve.

A division of the log line, serving to measure the rate of the vessel's motion. Each knot on the line bears the same proportion to a mile that thirty seconds do to an hour. The number of knots which run off from the reel in half a minute, therefore, shows the number of miles the vessel sails in an hour.

To stop.

A kind of epaulet. See Shoulder knot.

To bend the head, knee, or body, in token of reverence or submission; - often with down.

A sandpiper (Tringa canutus), found in the northern parts of all the continents, in summer. It is grayish or ashy above, with the rump and upper tail coverts white, barred with dusky. The lower parts are pale brown, with the flanks and under tail coverts white. When fat it is prized by epicures. Called also dunne.

To incline the head in token of salutation, civility, or assent; to make bow.

To tie in or with, or form into, a knot or knots; to form a knot on, as a rope; to entangle.

To play (music) with a bow.

To unite closely; to knit together.

An inclination of the head, or a bending of the body, in token of reverence, respect, civility, or submission; an obeisance; as, a bow of deep humility.

To entangle or perplex; to puzzle.

Anything bent, or in the form of a curve, as the rainbow.

To form knots or joints, as in a cord, a plant, etc.; to become entangled.

A weapon made of a strip of wood, or other elastic material, with a cord connecting the two ends, by means of which an arrow is propelled.

To knit knots for fringe or trimming.

An ornamental knot, with projecting loops, formed by doubling a ribbon or string.

To copulate; - said of toads.

The U-shaped piece which embraces the neck of an ox and fastens it to the yoke.

A tight cluster of people or things;

An appliance consisting of an elastic rod, with a number of horse hairs stretched from end to end of it, used in playing on a stringed instrument.

Any of various fastenings formed by looping and tying a rope (or cord) upon itself or to another rope or to another object

An arcograph.

A hard cross-grained round piece of wood in a board where a branch emerged;

Any instrument consisting of an elastic rod, with ends connected by a string, employed for giving reciprocating motion to a drill, or for preparing and arranging the hair, fur, etc., used by hatters.

Something twisted and tight and swollen;

A rude sort of quadrant formerly used for taking the sun's altitude at sea.

A unit of length used in navigation; equivalent to the distance spanned by one minute of arc in latitude; 1,852 meters

Two pieces of wood which form the arched forward part of a saddletree.

Soft lump or unevenness in a yarn; either an imperfection or created by design

The bending or rounded part of a ship forward; the stream or prow.

A sandpiper that breeds in the arctic and winters in the southern hemisphere

One who rows in the forward part of a boat; the bow oar.

Make into knots; make knots out of;

A knot with two loops and loose ends; used to tie shoelaces

Tie or fasten into a knot;

A slightly curved piece of resilient wood with taut horsehair strands, used in playing certain stringed instrument

Tangle or complicate;

Front part of a vessel or aircraft;

Curved piece of resilient wood with taut cord to propel arrows

Something curved in shape

Bending the head or body or knee as a sign of reverence or submission or shame

An appearance by actors or performers at the end of the concert or play in order to acknowledge the applause of the audience

A decorative interlacing of ribbons

A stroke with a curved piece of wood with taut horsehair strands that is used in playing stringed instruments

Bend one's knee or body, or lower one's head;

Submit or yield to another's wish or opinion;

Bend the head or the upper part of the body in a gesture of respect or greeting;

Bend one's back forward from the waist on down;

Play on a string instrument