knackered

adj — 2 senses

knackered

adj

UK /ˈnæk.əd/ · US /ˈnæk.ɚd/

Etymology From the verb knacker.

1

Commonwealth, Ireland, UK, Offensive, Slang, Sometimes Tired or exhausted.

  • I've got this job in a warehouse just now and it finishes quite early but I'm dead knackered at the end of the day so I don't know about going out and like studying every night.2002, Robert Edenborough, Effective Interviewing: A Handbook of Skills and Techniques, pages 97–98:
  • 2003, Hugh Dauncey, Geoff Hare (editors), The Tour de France, 1903-2003: A Century of Sporting Structures, Meanings and Values, Frank Cass Publishers, London, 2005, page 225, Then, it all just gets worse and worse, you don't sleep so much, so you don't recover as well from the day's racing, so you go into your reserves, you get more knackered, so you sleep less... It's simply a vicious circle.
2 more examples
  • So my joy at hearing his voice quickly turns to a paroxysm of anxiety as he manages by exhausted gesture and sound to let us know how knackered he feels, how desperate to get horizontal, almost from the first moment he lands in the chair.2009, Grace Maxwell, Falling & Laughing: The Restoration of Edwyn Collins, page 84:
  • In the course of this discussion, the (male) presenter, when uttering the word 'knackered', felt obliged to preface his animation of this word with “excuse my language”.2020 November 12, Jim O’Driscoll, Offensive Language: Taboo, Offence and Social Control, Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN, page 48:
Synonyms
cream crackered
Derived terms
cream crackered, Kerry Packered

knackered

adj

Etymology From "ready for the knacker's yard" or "fit to be knackered", meaning "worn-out livestock, fit to be slaughtered and rendered".

1

Ireland, South Africa, UK, Colloquial Broken, inoperative.

  • In the end though he had to admit that the car was knackered...2003, Simon Murphy, The Murders of Mutchrose Village, page 28:
  • We take an old knackered machine out to China and say, 'Copy that, brand new,' and they do.2009, John Newton, Vance Miller - Kitchen Gangster?, page 82:
Synonyms
broken, worn-out
Related terms
knacker, knacker's yard

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.

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