le noeud (neuh to pronounce noeud, say the word "nerd" leaving off the "rd") noun, masculine
  1. knot;  bow; node

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Listen:
Hear my son Max pronounce the word "noeud"

Also:
le noeud papillon = bow tie
le noeud coulant = slipknot

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Expressions:
une tête de noeud = an idiot
avoir un noeud dans la gorge = to have a lump in one’s throat
un sac de noeuds (sack of knots) = something very difficult

Citation du Jour:
Le noeud est à la cravate ce que le cerveau est à l’homme.
The knot is to the tie what the brain is to man. –La Rochefoucauld

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Words in a French Life: "…a heart-winning collection from an American woman raising two very French children with her French husband in Provence, carrying on a lifelong love affair with the language."
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References to the French word noeud in litterature:

The Book of Practical Fishing Knots by Geoffrey Budworth

Le classique des noeuds by Franck Ripault

Ecrits: The First Complete Translation in English by Jacques Lacan and Bruce Fink

The Lives of the Great Composers by Harold C. Schonberg

Hugo’s Les Miserables (Cliffs Notes) by Amy L. Marsland and George Klin

Piano Roles: A New History of the Piano by James Parakilas

André Breton: Surrealism and Painting by Andre Breton, Mark Polizzotti, Simon Watson Taylor, and André Breton

From the Royal to the Republican Body: Incorporating the Political in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century France by Sara E. Melzer and Kathryn Norberg

Dictionary of Medicine: French-English with English-French Glossary by Svetolik P. Djordjevic