# the Gordian knot

idiom · CEFR C1

Source: https://englishreference.com/idiom/the-gordian-knot
Updated: 2026-07-29

## Meaning

A problem so tangled and complicated that it can only be solved by a bold, unconventional stroke.

## Examples

- The new manager cut through the Gordian knot in one meeting.
- Rather than untangle years of conflicting contracts, she cut the Gordian knot and simply cancelled them all to start fresh.
- The dispute over water rights had become a Gordian knot of overlapping treaties, so the mediator cut it in one stroke, proposing a single shared authority to replace the entire tangle.

## Origin

In the city of Gordium stood an old ox-cart, and its yoke was lashed to the pole by a knot unlike any other. It showed no loose end anywhere; the cords were bound and folded back into one another so intricately that no one could say where the tangle began or where it left off. It had been tied, they said, generations earlier, and it had held ever since. An oracle had fixed a prophecy to it. Whoever could untie the knot, it was foretold, was destined to rule all of Asia. So year after year ambitious men came to Gordium, knelt before the cart, and worked their fingers raw at the impossible tangle — and every one of them, without exception, walked away beaten. Then Alexander the Great came to the city on his march east. He too was shown the knot; he too knelt and studied it, tugging and probing for a loose end. There was none. The harder he searched for a way in, the plainer it grew that no patient hand would ever pick the thing apart. So Alexander stopped searching for the clever way through. He rose, drew his sword, and with a single stroke sliced the knot clean in two. The cords fell open, the tangle was undone, and the prophecy, the story says, was fulfilled by a man who refused to play the puzzle by its own rules. A Gordian knot is a problem so hopelessly tangled that no ordinary effort will unpick it, and to cut the Gordian knot is to solve it as Alexander did — with one bold, decisive stroke that sweeps the whole tangle aside.

---

From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.