Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Very tired; exhausted.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, slang tired or exhausted.
  • verb Simple past tense and past participle of knacker.
  • adjective UK, Ireland, South Africa, colloquial Broken, inoperative.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective very tired

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From British slang knacker, to kill, wear out, tire, from knacker.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the verb knacker.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

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

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Examples

  • They managed to fix many of the so called knackered PS3s that Sony would charge an arm and a leg for or make you buy a refurbised one for £120.

    Army Rumour Service 2009

  • In the boardroom, Nick immediately dobbs Hairbaggs in for claiming to be "knackered".

    The Apprentice ? week eight live blog Heidi Stephens 2010

  • I'm going cream crackered Cockney-rhyming slang for 'knackered' or as tired as a worn out old horse.

    Book Chick City Book Chick City 2009

  • The journey home was nowhere near as easy as the one up and traffic and delays on top of our sheer exhaustion from the heavy week left us knackered which is partly why it's taken me this long to update!

    tequilamonky Diary Entry tequilamonky 2009

  • [Extract]: "Gordon Brown is a 'knackered' prime minister and should take a month's holiday, a Labour backbencher [Austin Mitchell] has said."

    OPEN THREAD 2009

  • Then there is an urgent need for more light helicopters, the current fleet of Lynxes being described as "knackered" and far too few in number.

    Coffins on wheels Richard 2006

  • Oh, and the Brits say "knackered", which is pretty good.

    I need a new word. LuLu 2008

  • Neither is 'locales?' a suitable alternative for 'knackered'.

    predictive text 2007

  • Neither is 'locales?' a suitable alternative for 'knackered'.

    Archive 2007-05-01 2007

  • The idea is that after a racehorse has finished racing, it is put out to seed made to breed to make new racehorses and when it is no longer capable of doing that, it is "knackered";

    Boing Boing Xeni Jardin 2011

Comments

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  • Very tired, or buggered up. E.g. "No, I didn't get your text message - I thought I told you my phone was knackered."

    November 8, 2007

  • Citation on crusty.

    August 2, 2008