British English Slang – Knackered or Cream Crackered
What Does “Knackered” Mean?
Meaning — extremely tired. This expression can also be used to describe something that is worn out or damaged because it has been used too much.
Cream crackered is British English rhyming slang for knackered. Cream crackered can therefore be used in a similar way to knackered.
Where Does “Knackered” Come From?
The slang term knackered is believed to have originated in the UK in the late 19th century, specifically from the trade of a knacker, which was a person who purchased and slaughtered worn-out horses for their meat, hides, and bones.
The term knackered originally meant “to be worn out or exhausted,” and it is thought to have come from the idea of a horse that had worked so hard it was no longer useful and needed to be sent to the knacker. Over time, the term was adopted into popular slang and is now commonly used in British English to describe a person or thing that is tired, worn out, or broken.
The idiom long in the tooth can also be used to describe something that is old or showing signs of age.
Cockney Rhyming Slang
Here are some more examples of Cockney rhyming slang that you may come across. You’ll notice that in many of these examples, the word that rhymes with the meaning is dropped from the expression — for example, we just say loaf, not loaf of bread, when we mean head. This makes it very difficult to guess the meaning of some of these expressions!
- Apples and Pears — Stairs
- Brown bread — Dead
- (You’re having a) bubble (from bubble bath) — Laugh
- (Have a) butcher’s (from butcher’s hook) — Look
- China (from China plate) — Mate
- Dicky Bow — Bow tie
- Dog and bone — Phone
- Half-inch — Pinch (steal)
- Loaf (from loaf of bread) — Head
- (It’s all gone) Pete Tong — Wrong — Pete Tong is a popular English DJ on BBC Radio 1.
- Ruby Murray — Curry — Ruby Murray was an Irish pop singer from the 1950s.
- Trouble and strife — Wife
Examples
“I’ve been playing football all afternoon and now I’m utterly knackered!”
“I’m not going out tonight because I’m cream crackered.”
What is slang?
Slang is very informal language. It’s usually spoken rather than written, and is often used by a particular group of people or in a particular place. Slang changes over time, and using it well is a great way to sound more natural when speaking English.
Frequently Asked Questions
It means extremely tired. It can also describe something that is worn out or damaged because it’s been used too much.
It’s believed to originate from the trade of a “knacker” in 19th-century Britain — someone who bought and slaughtered worn-out horses. A horse too exhausted to work any more was said to be ready for the knacker, and the word eventually came to mean simply “exhausted.”
It’s a form of British slang, originally from London’s East End, where a phrase that rhymes with a word is used in its place — and often only the non-rhyming part is said, like “loaf” for “head” (from “loaf of bread”), which makes it especially tricky to guess.
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