Do you class knackered as swearing?

[DisappointedD]

I have always thought of it as a mild swear word. A word I wouldn’t want my younger children using but wouldn’t be too bothered by a teen (but not to their grandparents) type word.

There is a current radio ad using the word which made me think about it earlier. I was surprised when I heard it and didn’t think it was a word I’d heard used in ad’s before.

Also in Newcastle Geordie we also say ‘he’s a knacker’ or ‘she’s a knacker’ meaning that they are silly/crackers.
nothing to do with testicles.

im laughing at all the people saying its a swear words as its used all the time in Newcastle/gateshead/Sunderland etc and wouldn’t be classed as being rude/crude.

In the north east/newcastle/gateshead/sunderland.
We often use this term….and often say it around kids….because it means tired/exhausted.
Nothing to do with sex and it’s not even mildly a swear/rude or crude word.

It obviously had an urban dictionary understanding that those who know, no – and those who don’t, don’t.

Otherwise, you wouldn’t have had many of us say the same as I’ve just said, as well as having it appear on the Internet, printed before we even had this discussion today.

Knackered isn't a swear word to me. It's a bit slangy/informal, but not offensive.

It comes from suggesting that someone is fit to be knackered, as in, to be sent to the knacker's yard. The knacker was a person who disposed of old, worn-out horses when they were no longer fit to do useful work.

The origin of the word knacker itself is a bit uncertain but apparently it's possibly from an Old Norse word hnakkur meaning a saddle or possibly neck.

It’s the older generation that use it a lot in my area.
The ‘Eee pet I’m ready for the knackers yards’ and ‘Eee pet I’m knackered’
as a nurse this is said to me multiple times per day!

No but my mum does!

Agree re knackers, this was my understanding too (North West England). I'm also still routinely shocked to find 'fart' used in plays etc for young children but no-one around me ever appears especially surprised😆

I’ve always thought of it as a swear word. It would be rude to say it in polite company, but I’d say it to my friends.

No it doesn't just say tired.

Not swearing at all and I used to use it a lot but stopped when I suddenly thought about what it actually means.
I use “shagged” instead now in informal adult company (which I suppose some might find mildly offensive) or shattered if need to be more formal.

An offensive word re Irish Travellers is knackers

You answered your own question - it’s not pleasant and I wouldn’t use it in front of my parents ( I’m in my 50s and have never sworn in front of them) but it’s not a swear word

Mum wouldn't wash my mouth out with soap, and Dad wouldn't give me a hiding for using knackered, so not a swear word in our family, no.

Knackers was common slang for gypsies, men's testicle, and the knackers yard was where horses or donkeys were sent when they were of no use in agriculture any more and were put down.
It's certainly an unsavoury word where I was brought up.

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.

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.

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.

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 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?

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.

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.

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!

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 )

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

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!