knacker
/ˈnakə
/British
noun
1A person whose business is the disposal of dead or unwanted animals, especially those whose flesh is not fit for human consumption.The intention would be to have dead animals collected from farms by the local knacker man and then sent for rendering....
- ‘In the Fall’ tells of an old horse being sold to the knacker by a family who lack the means to feed it through another winter and who need the pittance it will bring.
- He explains that there was a mistake - the vet had just bought the van from the knacker and had not yet painted out the old name.
2 (knackers) vulgar slang Testicles.
3Irish informal An uncouth or loutish person.Even better we should make an island made of the scrap they've dumped off the west coast somewhere, transport all the knackers in Ireland to it and let them live there....
- Singing should break down all barriers, you can be from anywhere, unless you sing like a knacker which is what she does.
verb [with object] informal
1Tire (someone) out: this weekend has really knackered me...
- And after last night's shenanigans I'm absolutely knackered.
- Bless him, by this point it was about quarter to two in the morning and he was knackered so I forgive him for being a bit confused.
- I had every intention of arriving early and leaving early as it was a ‘school night’ and I was knackered after quite a few late nights at work.
1.1Damage (something) severely: I knackered my ankle playing on Sunday...
- My windscreen wipers are knackered and it's snowing buckets.
- The teaching job really knackered my confidence.
- When I work a 12 hour day, without a break, like today, the last thing I want to find at the end of it is that my bloody phone handset is knackered.
Origin
Late 16th century (originally denoting a harness-maker, then a slaughterer of horses): possibly from obsolete knack 'trinket'. The word also had the sense 'old worn-out horse' (late 18th century). sense 2 of the noun may be from dialect knacker 'castanet', from obsolete knack 'make a sharp abrupt noise', of imitative origin. It is unclear whether the verb represents a figurative use of ‘slaughter’, from sense 1 of the noun, or of ‘castrate’, from sense 2 of the noun.