[Origin obscure. In sense 1, the knacker may orig. have made only the knacks or smaller articles belonging to harness, and hence have taken his name; but this is doubtful, as is also the connection of sense 2.]
1. A harness-maker; a saddler. dial.
1573. Tusser, Husb. (1878), 137. Plowwrite, cartwrite, knacker and smith.
1622. F. Markham, Bk. War, III. iv. § 6. 96. Men of these trades, as Codders, or Knackers, Cartwrights, Smiths, and the like.
1691. Ray, S. & E. Country Words, 104. A Knacker, One that makes Collars and other Furniture for Cart-horses.
Mod. Northampton Dial., You must take this collar to the knacker’s to be altered, it wrings the horse’s shoulders so much.
[Ainsworth, Lat. Dict. (1736), has ‘A Knacker, Restio.’ (Restio is a ropemaker.) Johnson (1755), has Knacker ‘1. A maker of small work’ (quoting 1573 above). ‘2. A rope-maker’ (quoting Ainsworth). Craig, 1847, has ‘A maker of knacks, toys, or small work; a rope-maker; a collar-maker.’ All these dictionary-explanations or misunderstandings seem to arise out of the sense ‘harness-maker.’]
2. One whose trade it is to buy worn out, diseased or useless horses, and slaughter them for their hides and hoofs, and for making dog’s-meat, etc.; a horse-slaughterer.
1812. Sporting Mag., XXXIX. 209. He was a knacker [note, A purchaser of worn-up horses].
1824. Monthly Mag., LVII. 109. The nackers’ and catgut-makers’ yards.
1874. Helps, Soc. Press., ii. 8–9. Four or five hundred horses are carried to the knacker’s yard each week in London.
b. One who buys old houses, ships, etc., for the sake of their materials, or what can be made of them.
1890. Times, 23 Aug., 4/6. Worm-eaten hulks … sent by ship knackers to find freight or a grave in the North Atlantic.
1899. Daily News, 2 Feb., 3/1. The old house knacker was bad enough,… but he was innocence itself, compared with the new house knacker that has risen up. Ibid., 12 June, 8/4. Lovers of old London have been grieved by the news that No. 47, Leicester-square … where the painter [Reynolds] lived and worked … was to be made over to the house-knackers.
3. transf. An old worn-out horse. dial.
1864. H. Mayhew, German Life & Mann., I. 127. Such spavined knackers.
1867. ‘Ouida,’ Under Two Flags (1890), 122. The famous English horse was dead beat as any used-up knacker.
