Etymology

Adjective

1. Of or pertaining to Gordium, capital of Phrygia (now Yassihüyük in Turkey).
2. Of the Gordian knot.
3. Twisted; convoluted; tied as a knot.

Quotations

• 1667 — John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book IV

  close the serpent sly, / Insinuating, wove with Gordian twine / His braided train

• 1819 — John Keats, Lamia

  Until he found a palpitating snake,
  Bright, and cirque-couchant in a dusky brake.
  She was a gordian shape of dazzling hue,
  Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue.

• 2005 — Lance Parkin, The Gallifrey Chronicles, p 205

  When you put it that way it was so simple, so self-explanatory, so beautiful, so obvious that what had seemed the most Gordian problem was instantly almost mundane, and its elegance was its own proof.