Get knotted
Meaning
An impolite and dismissive way to tell someone to go away or stop being annoying.
Origin
Emerging in mid-20th-century Britain, 'Get knotted' swiftly became a pithy, dismissive alternative to harsher expletives. The phrase conjures a vivid image of someone tying themselves into an impossible, frustrating tangle, essentially telling them to go occupy themselves with such a futile and annoying task. It served as a sharp retort, popular from the 1960s onwards, for unequivocally dismissing an unwanted person, comment, or suggestion with a memorable, yet less overtly offensive, brush-off.
Examples
- When he kept asking me personal questions, I finally snapped, 'Oh, just get knotted!'
- She told her intrusive neighbor to get knotted after he commented on her garden for the tenth time.