knackered
English edit
Pronunciation edit
Etymology 1 edit
From the verb knacker.
Adjective edit
knackered (comparative more knackered, superlative most knackered)
- (UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, slang, sometimes offensive) Tired or exhausted.
- 2002, Robert Edenborough, Effective Interviewing: A Handbook of Skills and Techniques, pages 97–98:
- 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.
- 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.
- 2009, Grace Maxwell, Falling & Laughing: The Restoration of Edwyn Collins, page 84:
- 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.
- 2020 November 12, Jim O’Driscoll, Offensive Language: Taboo, Offence and Social Control, Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN, page 48:
- 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”.
Usage notes edit
Formerly considered a rude word – possibly implying that the subject was exhausted from having sex, perhaps due to conflation with knackers (“testicles”) – and still considered offensive by some (primarily older British people).
Synonyms edit
- (tired, exhausted): cream crackered; See also Thesaurus:fatigued
Derived terms edit
- cream crackered (Cockney rhyming slang)
- Kerry Packered (Cockney rhyming slang)
Translations edit
extremely tired or exhausted
|
Verb edit
knackered
- simple past and past participle of knacker
Etymology 2 edit
From "ready for the knacker's yard" or "fit to be knackered", meaning "worn-out livestock, fit to be slaughtered and rendered".
Adjective edit
knackered (comparative more knackered, superlative most knackered)
- (UK, Ireland, South Africa, colloquial) Broken, inoperative.
- 2003, Simon Murphy, The Murders of Mutchrose Village, page 28:
- In the end though he had to admit that the car was knackered...
- 2009, John Newton, Vance Miller - Kitchen Gangster?, page 82:
- We take an old knackered machine out to China and say, 'Copy that, brand new,' and they do.
Synonyms edit
- (broken, inoperative): broken, worn-out; See also Thesaurus:out of order
Translations edit
broken, inoperative