The story
- Old Norse · derived fromknǫrr
- Middle English · derived fromknarre“knot in wood”
- English todayknurl
From knur + -le (“diminutive”), from Middle English knarre (“knot in wood”), earlier sense “a stone”, likely influenced by Old Norse knǫrr. gnarl is a later variant, from gnarled, via knurled.
Words from the same roots
Middle Englishknarre all →
knar
Old Norseknǫrr all →
knorrknarr
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.