knackered

comparative more knackered · superlative most knackered

1. CommonwealthIrelandUKmildlyslangvulgarTired or exhausted.

   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

   3 more examples

   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.

   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

   Synonyms: cream crackered

1. participlepastsimple past and past participle of knacker

comparative more knackered · superlative most knackered

1. IrelandSouth AfricaUKcolloquialBroken, inoperative.

   In the end though he had to admit that the car was knackered...

   2003, Simon Murphy, The Murders of Mutchrose Village, page 28

   1 more example

   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, busted, worn-out