'Gnarl' in y3 spelling test

[Spatz]

My DD had this in this week's spelling test. DH and I don't think it's a real word.

My (admittedly old) concise oxford english dictionary only has 'gnarled' and 'gnarly'. Found a definition online at answers.com - not sure whether to trust it.

What do you think?

Sometimes spelling words come out of things the class has been reading - it might have been in a poem or something? Worth asking. It is strange.

I did ask and the teacher got it from something I think she called a 'wordbank'. She thought she ought to trust it, but was also suspicious.

www.thefreedictionary.com/gnarl

It's in my Collins dictionary . It's a knotty protuberance

"[Frequentative of gnar.]"

Still with you, though, spatz, on the basis that there are an awful lot more words a 7 or 8 yo should know how to spell before you get to the frequentative of grar.

I'm a bit scared in here... dare I ask what a 'frequentative' is?

I was also unsure about thefreedictionary - tis American.

This one reckons it can mean "to make complaining remarks or noises under one's breath, which is a new one on me, and please don't look at the 'urban' dictionary definition of a flying gnarl whale if you are with your dcs....I naiively thought it would be something to do with natural history...nuh-uhhhh!

Thanks for that Feenie - didn't expect it to take that direction so early in the evening

Neither did I, bloody Google!

Don't know myself, technically, what a frequentative is - but going on gut semantics, I think it probably means "the repetitious form of" - a bit like feenie's grumbly noises (sorry, feenie's reference to grumbly noises) but making those noises in going-on & on & on way.

What, incidentally, does the teacher think it means? My yr3 dd is meant to know the meanings of her spelling words (ie to be able to put them in a sentence), even more than the spellings.

The teacher said it was a noise dogs make (snarl?) and I think she might have mentioned muttering, too.
It's not going to be much use to DD, is it?

PS she did spell it correctly today!

Big online OED says:

1. A contorted knotty protuberance, esp. on a tree.

1. A snarl. (But NB rare - the OED only lists one usage, and that was from a Bronte)

1. vb. To snarl (BUT obsolete - last OED entry 1814)

1. vb. trans. To contort, twist, make knotted and rugged like an old tree

1. vb. trans. To gnaw. (dialect, not common usage)

Think teacher should check facts before setting homework. Or perhaps just check spelling.