Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Chiefly British Very tired; exhausted.
Wiktionary
- adj. UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, slang tired or exhausted.
- v. Simple past tense and past participle of knacker.
- adj. UK, Ireland, South Africa, colloquial Broken, inoperative.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. very tired
Etymologies
- From the verb knacker. (Wiktionary)
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.”
“In the boardroom, Nick immediately dobbs Hairbaggs in for claiming to be "knackered".”
“[Extract]: "Gordon Brown is a 'knackered' prime minister and should take a month's holiday, a Labour backbencher [Austin Mitchell] has said.”
“I'm going cream crackered Cockney-rhyming slang for 'knackered' or as tired as a worn out old horse.”
“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!”
“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.”
“Oh, and the Brits say "knackered", which is pretty good.”
“Neither is 'locales?' a suitable alternative for 'knackered'.”
“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";”
“Further to the "knackered" comments, it actually has an old meaning of "tired after sex".”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘knackered’.
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UK - slang
fanny, nick, mufti, siphon, mug, smashing, butcher, stick up, knocker, porridge, tit, punter and 208 more...
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The weird, the wonderful and the plai...
Loved for their ingenuity, an exact description, or simply for the pure joy of it.
acidulous, aprosdoketon, higgledy-piggledy, lexicographical, ninja, audacious, somnabulist, shivaree, amorphous, quidnunc, glib, melancholy and 353 more...
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Mondayish
Tired. Of all of it.
mondayish, tucker, shank-weary, faik, fash, palestric, shot, careworn, world-weary, world-weariness, wayworn, wearying and 81 more...
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Happening soon
carnival, ipanema, home, saudade, bikini, lightening kidnap..., carioca, belindia, bossa nova, iemanja, tarrying, dilly-dallying and 4 more...
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knack
know-how, art, hang, bent, flair, touch, method, nose, genius, gift, faculty, instinct and 14 more...
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britishisms
A tip of my hat to the snarkiest of English dialects. Here here!
Ponce, snog, bloody, barmy, blasted, blooming, bleeding, knackered, poppycock, wanker, tosser, cracked and 52 more...
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Fun Words
Words that are fun to say....
gobbledygook, jings, crivens, hullabaloo, wheech, brouhaha, pizzazz, harum-scarum, namby-pamby, pussyfoot, frippery, pitter-patter and 333 more...
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Twitter favourites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favourite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
thunderfuck, incredible, merp, sara, flopparoo, smother, fugly, buer, plum, canny, nefelibata, cuntbucket and 1972 more... -
JesusIsLord's Words
debauchery, plethora, wiki, numinous, wormwood, scribe, gelded, mithridate, orthogonal, jaculiferous, jaculate, jactitation and 415 more...
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Twitter favorites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favorite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
grabbable, retuiteando, leaving, fantastic, absolutely, kurwa, hella, ridic, underpass, hate, interlude, plush and 2369 more... -
SoSheShall's list
slurp, coeur, slurple, glop, perp, fluarxx, ropechno, herrherr, burrduhherrherr, sloppy, cheezie balls, eccentric and 634 more...
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Awesome Words, Part 2: More Common
pilgrim, indubitably, incorrigible, bombastic, histrionics, depredation, perspicuity, discombobulate, peregrination, ambulatory, redux, fractious and 164 more...
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Reading Reading
Words from the works of Peter Reading - at least one from each (except the Schwitters-esque erosions, cut-ups etc).
overbright, pimpled, muskiness, effuse, stoup, maul, unlevel, viscid, perfidious, glibly, aloes, drouth and 449 more...
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feeling words
twitterpated, loquacious, ambiguous, pensive, sluggish, anxious, adventurous, curious, abandoned, absent-minded, abrasive, abused and 653 more...
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some words
phatic, macerate, amanuenses, theophagy, seraglio, gloaming, geophagy, metaphone, anastrophe, neologism, tetragrammaton, bête noire and 568 more...
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Words and phrases of Irish origin, or...
not necessarily eponyms, but might be
boycott, blarney, banshee, galore, keen, donnybrook, colleen, drumlin, phoney, clan, cairn, ceili and 122 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for knackered.

yarb Citation on crusty. Aug 2, 2008
yarb Very tired, or buggered up. E.g. "No, I didn't get your text message - I thought I told you my phone was knackered." Nov 7, 2007