Do you class knackered as swearing?

Makes me look at the nursery song 'Knick knack paddywhack' in a new light.

Of course. But the dismissive and self-important tone of some of the "that's nonsense" responses is just stupid.

It's not a swear word by any means and it derives from the knackers yard where horses are slaughtered. But it is slang and ideally not a word you'd use at the Royal Garden Party or a job interview.

Yes this. This is what my dad told me it meant.

But the reverse is also true, right? — just because Jane’s cousin Jackie Bloggs has heard the tired-after-sex meaning does not mean the word is objectively rude when Jane says it. Or that it simply “is” offensive or rude and shouldn’t be used by children or in polite company.

As weird as Australians who pronounce router incorrectly simply to avoid it sounding the same as a local slang word for sexual intercourse.

when I was young knackered was slang for tiredness after sex so if an adult said this it was either hilarious especially to young teenagers or 🤢

yes crap was a swear word too I wouldn’t have said it in front of an adult

We can be weird yes, but also language use varies between English speaking countries. eg the different use of ‘fag’ between USA and UK? Also a certain ‘r’ word (referring to learning disability) was acceptable in the US for a long time but not here. (Not sure if that is now changing now in the US.)

It’s not a swear word. Do you think horses that get sent to the knacker’s yard to end up in a yard full of testicles? It just means exhausted and clapped out. (Clapped out as in worn out, not as in suffering from the clap).

I find it bizarre that people are being so authoritative in their responses here as if they had drafted the dictionary definition. Language isn’t a science where theres a definitive yes or no.

I have heard both connotations (the knackers yard one and the post sex exhaustion one): my mum used to warn me to be careful with its usage when I was younger. I can well believe that it had that association although its old now.

But the whole point with language is that its meaning changes all the time and is defined by the people who use it. Just because you, Jane Bloggs, have not heard the association with being tired after sex doesn’t mean it can’t be correct.

It’s slang rather than a swear word. I wouldn’t want to hear young children using slang. There’s time enough for that

I remember being told off by my DF for using the word as a child, and being confused. I think it’s because it relates to genitalia in some tenuous way

I was told off for saying it as a child and I don't think I've ever used it since! I understand its origin is the knackers yard where old unfit work horses went to be killed.

I get your question @DisappointedD… when I was a child the word was considered to be unpleasant and we were told off for using it, as it was considered a mild swear word.

I use it now… but feel a strange discomfort around it!

Not a swear word but not a word I would use or like to hear used.

Is it not just an old fashioned word relating to horses ? When they were no longer of use "knackered" they were sent to the knackers yard (dog food )

Yes, to me it’s a swear word, along with every other word mentioned in this thread.

I hate crude words and swearing, I’d have been horrified if my DC had used any. They’re adults now, and I’m not so daft to think they don’t swear on occasion, but they don’t swear around me.

They’d still get a telling off if they did!

Yes, I think the association with horses and travellers led to the conflation of the terms. My grandmother would have said "tinker" without intending to be demeaning, but I've never heard of the K word used as anything other than an insult.

I don’t class it as swearing as such, but I feel it’s sounds vulgar.
Think I prefer to say Knocked Out or Kaned.
Im not “precious” about swearing, but I don’t like language that paints an image that is not really you.

I don't know much about Traveller history, but in the case of the t- word that is now a slur, wasn't it a word for a whitesmith, which was an occupation associated with Travellers and so became a word used for them as a group?

So I wonder if at one time slaughtering horses was also a job they tended to do in some places, and so in those places (but perhaps not in others) the occupation and the group were conflated, again with derogatory overtones?

To knacker can mean to castrate in an animal/farming sense - slang term from long ago.
Knacker is also to do with cast for age horses and cows that are put down and used for pet food and glue. Old horses go to the knackery.
Knackered out means dead tired - Is it due to association with old horses? Or due to being castrated?

I always thought it was one of those sky blue words you wouldn't say in front of her vicar's wife like crap or sod. I always believed it meant 'tired and exhausted'. A few years ago, a school mum told me that it meant 'tired after sex' - she was a bit odd though.

I'm Irish, and that's the only meaning of "knacker's yard" I've ever heard of, although "knacker" is a common derogatory term for a traveller.

Having looked it up, I think what’s happening here with the word knackered is 2 separate words converging:

First and Original meaning and totally acceptable usage:

Knacker = old Norse for saddle
Knackers yard = slaughterhouse
Knackered = slang for exhausted / worn out.

Second use, according to the source I found citing the Oxford English Dictionary that this first started to be used in the 1970s (I had never heard of this latter use and I was around in the 70s). NB the first use above appears in the OED.

Knackers = slang for castinets
Knackers = changed over time to slang for testicles
Knackered = shagged out

As for crap, this is not a swear word.

First and original meaning = rubbish ie waste product but not excrement.

More recent meaning (the original meaning being altered whilst also keeping the original meaning) = excrement ie waste product. Possibly popularised because of Thomas Crapper American, 19th century maker of toilets, but first used mid 18th century when he was a child.

Crap is therefore a perfectly acceptable way to say rubbish in slang without reference to poo. Ditto knackered without sexual connotation.