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by Kate Woodford

This post is for anyone who feels they use the word ‘tired’ too much and is looking for some more interesting and emphatic alternatives. As usual, it will include both single words and phrases.

If you are tired and feel you want to sleep, you might say you are sleepy or drowsy:

I often feel sleepy after a heavy meal.

The heat had made us drowsy.

If you are extremely tired, you can describe yourself as exhausted, worn out , drained, or weary.

I can’t work anymore – I’m exhausted.

Go and have a rest – you look worn out.

Some days he comes home looking completely drained.

She looked weary after the long walk.

As an alternative to ‘exhausted’, you can also use the informal adjectives wiped out, done in or, in UK English, shattered.  For even greater emphasis, you can say that you are (informal) dog-tired:

I was wiped out after the run.

After ten miles, I was done in.

Go to bed, honey – you look shattered.

By the end of a shift, I’m dog-tired.

Two rather formal alternatives to ‘exhausted’ are the adjectives spent and fatigued:

She was spent and could go no further.

The virus can leave you fatigued for several weeks.

Two very emphatic idioms meaning ‘exhausted’ are be dead on your feet and be fit to drop:

I’d been working since six o’clock and was dead on my feet.

I expect you’re fit to drop after working ten hours straight!

If you have bleary eyes or are bleary-eyed, you cannot see clearly because you are tired or have just woken up:

He yawned and rubbed his bleary eyes.

She was bleary-eyed after a twelve-hour flight.

There are some useful verbs and verbal phrases in this area too. If, after doing something for a while, you flag; you get tired and start to do it slowly or less effectively. Meanwhile, an activity that takes it out of you makes you very tired:

We’d been in the meeting for over two hours and were starting to flag.

Walking in the heat really takes it out of you.

Finally, when an athlete who is running, swimming, etc. hits the wall, they reach the point when they are so physically tired, they feel they cannot continue:

After running twenty miles, I hit the wall.

I hope you enjoyed today’s post and learned a word or two. If you’d like to learn about the opposite sort of language, take a look at this post about language related to energy.