Where "Rooted" Comes From
"Rooted" is built on the Australian vulgar sense of "root," but the word branched off to take on an entirely separate everyday life describing exhaustion or something completely finished — no longer heard as crude in most ordinary contexts.
Context does essentially all of the work: "I'm rooted after that shift" simply means exhausted, and "the car's rooted" means it's broken beyond fixing — both about as ordinary and unremarkable as Australian slang for tiredness or breakage gets. The earliest citation dates to 1944, from John Hetherington's book "The Australian Soldier: A Portrait," which quotes a dying man saying "I'm rooted."
Source:
"I'm rooted - been working all week."
How Aussies Actually Use It
Used casually after a long stretch of work, a hard day, or a busy week — "I'm rooted" is a plain, everyday way to say you've got nothing left in the tank.
It works just as well for a piece of equipment that's finally given up, no different from saying something's cactus.
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