English Explanatory Dictionary

ticky-tacky

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. Cheap, low-quality building material, especially as that used to make conventional suburban housing of a uniform design.
adj
  1. Made of this material; cheaply built, of low quality.
  2. Inferior, minor, trivial.

Word forms

ticky-tacky ticky tacky

Etymology

Probably reduplication of tacky. Apparently coined by Malvina Reynolds in the early 1960s (see quotation, below).

Synonyms

cruddy lousy shoddy ass bad base below par bottom-shelf BTEC bum cheap cheap and nasty cheapshit cheesy chintzy coffee-and crap crappo crappy craptastic crapperific craptabulous craptacular crummy dogwater drecky flimsy fourth-rate gash garbage god-awful inferior low low-grade low-quality low-rent made in China mid naughty one-star poor poor man's pound-shop punk rinky-dink ropy rubbish sad schlocky scrubby second-rate slazy slight slim subpar shit shite shitty substandard ticky-tacky

Related words

ticky-tack
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