different between knacker vs knackered

English

Etymology

From Old Norse hnak (“saddle”) (whence Icelandic hnakkur (“saddle”)), hur (“horse”) — the profession of saddlemaker.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: n?k?, IPA^(key): /?nak?/
• (General American) enPR: n?k?r, IPA^(key): /?næk?/
• Rhymes: -æk?(r)
• Hyphenation: knack?er

Noun

knacker (plural knackers)

1. One who makes knickknacks, toys, etc.
2. One of two or more pieces of bone or wood held loosely between the fingers, and struck together by moving the hand; a clapper.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Halliwell to this entry?)

3. A harness maker.
4. One who slaughters and (especially) renders worn-out livestock (especially horses) and sells their flesh, bones and hides.
   • 1933, George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London, Ch. XXII, Harvest / Harcourt paperback edition, pg. 117-118,

     After a few years even the whip loses its virtue, and the pony goes to the knacker.

5. One who dismantles old ships, houses, etc. and sells their components.
6. (Ireland, Britain, offensive) A member of the Travelling Community; a Gypsy.
7. (Ireland, Northern English, offensive, slang) A person of lower social class; a chav, skanger or scobe.
8. (Britain, slang, chiefly in the plural) A testicle.
   • 2013, Perry Gamsby, Never Be Unsaid (page 136)

     He looked like someone had put a 9mm full metal jacket round through his left scrotum. He even had his mouth open in some parody of a soundless scream, much as I imagined I would do if someone shot my left knacker off.

9. (Britain, dialect, obsolete) A collier's horse.

Derived terms

• knacker's yard

Translations

Verb

knacker (third-person singular simple present knackers, present participle knackering, simple past and past participle knackered)

1. (British slang) To tire out, exhaust.

   Carrying that giant statue up those stairs knackered me out

2. (British slang) To reprimand.

   Digital giants Dstv and Vision Group’s Bukedde Television didn’t go untouched with the former lashed for laxities in re-connection especially in cases where a subscriber renewed their subscription by Mobile Money, while the latter got knackered for promoting witchcraft and witch doctors. ( http://trumpetnews.co.ug/2017/03/16/1615/ )

Translations

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?næk.?d/

Etymology 1

From the verb knacker.

Adjective

knackered (comparative more knackered, superlative most knackered)

1. (Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, slang) 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.

Synonyms

• (tired, exhausted): cream crackered; See also Thesaurus:fatigued

Derived terms

• cream crackered (Cockney rhyming slang)
• Kerry Packered (Cockney rhyming slang)

Translations

Verb

knackered

1. simple past tense and past participle of knacker

Etymology 2

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

Adjective

knackered (comparative more knackered, superlative most knackered)

1. (Britain, Ireland, South Africa, colloquial) Broken, inoperative.
   • 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

• (broken, inoperative): broken, worn-out; See also Thesaurus:out of order

Translations

Related terms

• knacker
• knacker's yard