knuckly

comparative knucklier · superlative knuckliest

1. Knucklelike.

   [N]ow he was skirting a rock face whose crown overhung its base and whose extensive surface was knuckly with the clay nests of innumerable martins; […]

   1950, Mervyn Peake, chapter 19, in Gormenghast (The Gormenghast Trilogy; II), revised edition, New York, N.Y.: Ballantine Books, published October 1968, →OCLC, page 160

2. Having prominent knuckles.

   At the far end of the houses the head gardener stood waiting for his mistress, and he gave her strips of bass to tie up her nosegay. This she did slowly and laboriously, with knuckly old fingers that shook.

   1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XXXIX, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC, page 307