means To make fabric or a garment by interlocking loops of yarn with needles, or more loosely to join, mend, or draw things tightly together.

from From Old English cnyttan, 'to tie in a knot,' built on the same Germanic root that gives us 'knot' itself — a cousin of words across the North Sea like Dutch knot and Old Norse knútr. So before it meant looping yarn into sweaters, it simply meant fastening with knots; the sense of weaving loops on needles is the later, gentler descendant. The same knotting instinct survives in figurative phrases like a 'closely knit' family — bound, not just gathered.