25 across
Like
bad
deal,
difficult
to
undo?
(6)
Like bad deal, difficult to undo? (6)
hints
0
checks
0
hints
The whole clue is the definition (& lit or double definition).
How the clue works
This is a playful all-in-one cryptic definition for Like bad deal difficult to undo. "Deal" is a kind of timber, and poor-quality deal is full of knots, so it's KNOTTY, while a KNOTTY tangle is indeed hard to undo — the two ideas play off each other around the notion of knots.