Meaning of knacker's yard | Babel Free

Definitions

1. The area of a slaughterhouse where carcasses unfit for human consumption or other purposes are rendered down to produce useful materials such as glue.
2. A (notional) place to send a person or object that is spent beyond all reasonable use.
   colloquial, figuratively

Equivalents

Examples

“CXXV. The Commissioners may license such slaughter-house and knacker's yards^([sic]) as they from time to time think proper for slaughtering cattle within the limits of the special Act. CXXVI. No place shall be used or occupied as a slaughter-house or knacker's yard within the said limits which was not in such use and occupation at the time of the passing of the special Act, [...]”

“It was a horrible smell of corrupt flesh and mouldy bones, mingling with the sickly steam of from cauldrons in which the anatomized animals were seething down. None save those who have been so unfortunate as to venture upon the confines of a knacker's yard, can possibly conceive the horrible nausea produced by these blended effluvia: it was enough to make the strongest stomach heave and become sick.”

“[T]he market [Smithfield Market] is surrounded by slaughter-houses and knackers' yards, tallow-melting, bone-boiling, tripe-washing, and other offensive trades; [...]”

“The information given when the first animal was presented for slaughter was that lead paint had been consumed and that three other animals of the same herd had died and had been sent to a knackers yard.^([sic])”

“In the 1820s, it was estimated that 400 horses a week were slaughtered via licensed horse-butchers (more commonly known as knackers' yards); by mid-century the number had risen to 1,000 horses weekly, and knackers' yards dotted the poorer districts – [...]”

“I’ve never met someone so incompetent. He’s only fit for the knacker’s yard.”

“No-one would argue that the system is perfect. But as it nears pensionable age, only deranged free marketeers want to see it packed off to the knacker's yard.”

“By then, of course, we and the book are in a sorry state, / scuffed and grubby and having been used / often for purposes not strictly intended, / from doorstop to lavatory-paper, / and ended up in a knacker's yard. / I'm in the knacker's yard. Have been for a while … / and, really, there are worse places to be.”

CEFR level