Knackered

 WORD OF THE DAY

knackered / adjective / NAK-erd

Definition
:tired, exhausted

Examples
“[Jonathan] Smith played world-class tennis in the Grand Slams of the 1970s. ... He calls croquet ‘a great game for anyone who’s a bit knackered’ after the strains on the joints and whatnot from a pursuit such as tennis or rugby.”
 — Chuck Culpepper, The Washington Post, 9 July 2022

Mounting a knackered horse and dragging a fat old farmer, Sancho, in his wake, the don declares undying love for an ordinary girl out of her depth.
—Jeanette Winterson, New York Times, 3 Sep. 2019

Did You Know?
An apt synonym for knackered might be the phrase “dead tired” for more than one reason.
Knackered comes from the past participle of knacker, a slang term meaning “to kill,” as well as “to tire, exhaust, or wear out.”
The origins of the verb knacker are uncertain, but the word is perhaps related to an older noun knacker.
That word originally referred to a harness-maker or saddlemaker, and later to a buyer of animals no longer able to do farmwork (or their carcasses), as well as to a buyer of old structures.
Knackered is used on both sides of the Atlantic but is more common among British speakers.