I guess I’m gradually turning into my dad. The other day, after an exhausting day working on my deck in the 85-degree weather, I said to Marilyn, “I’m plumb tuckered out!” Now, why in the world would I say that?
I haven’t heard that expression in probably 60 years. But my dad used to say it, and suddenly there it was coming out of my mouth.
Dad was a hard-working guy, and by evening he was usually bushed (Wow! There’s another one!). “Plumb tuckered out” was one of his favorite ways of expressing his fatigue. He had a number of other idioms to characterize his exhaustion: too pooped to pop, played out, drained, wiped out, dragged through a knot hole. If he’d spent a lot of time on his feet, he’d often say “My dogs are really barking!”
Well, you know how I like words and idioms, so I started to think about the expressions we use for being tired. Pooped, dog tired, dead on my feet, zonked, beat, bushed,whipped, dragged out, played out, wrung out, knocked out, worn out, washed out, all in, bleary-eyed, burned-out, drooping, dog-tired, dead tired, dead on my feet, dead beat, whacked out, running on empty, running on fumes, bone weary, bone tired, tired to the bone, ready to drop, dragging, out of gas, drained, spent.
I saw a lot of Westerns when I was a kid, and one of my very favorite actors was George “Gabby” Hayes. Remember him? What a great character! He usually played a grizzled old guy named “Gabby” in the movies, and at some point in the movie he’d usually utter the sentence, “I’m plumb tuckered out!” My dad didn’t go to those movies so he must have heard it somewhere else.
So, as is my wont, I did a little research on the expression. I found out that the real origin of this phrase is quite natural. “Tucker” is a word that was coined in colloquial New England in the 19th century and, in general, has become obsolete. The meaning of the word “tucker,” is “to tire” or “become weary.” Dictionary.com says that “to tucker” is “to exhaust.” This means that if a person was tuckered, he was tired. It just happens that “out” was added to the word “tuckered” so saying “tuckered out” is like saying “tired out.” Saying “plumb tuckered out” is like saying “extremely tired out.” Look at the list above; notice how many have “out” attached to them.
“Plumb” (meaning completely; absolutely; quite) is just an intensifier.
“Tuckered out” is rarely seen alone. People are plumb, clear, well-nigh (when was the last time you heard anyone say “well-nigh”?) or, as in the earliest example that I found, “prodigiously tuckered out.” That example is from the Wisconsin Enquirer, April 1839: “I reckoned to have got to the tavern by sundown, but I haven’t — as I’m prodigiously tuckered out.”
I didn’t try to to find derivations of all those other expressions. I was too tuckered out. And by the time I’d gotten this far, “Little Tommy Tucker” kept singing for his supper in my head. So I’ll quit. All this talk about being tired is making me tired. In fact, I’m plumb tuckered out!
Thanks, Dad!
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