ticky-tacky
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ticky-tacky
Where it comes from
Probably reduplication of tacky. Apparently coined by Malvina Reynolds in the early 1960s (see quotation, below).
noun ticky tacky
- Cheap, low-quality building material, especially as that used to make conventional suburban housing of a uniform design. And the boys go into business, and marry and raise a family / In boxes made of ticky-tacky, and they all look just the same.
adjective ticky tacky
-
Made of this material; cheaply built, of low quality.
My first impression was that Phoenix was another American Dream (a la L.A.) come true—ticky-tacky tract housing complexes and mini-malls stretching boundlessly into the flat desert horizon.
Similar: cruddy, lousy, shoddy, ass, bad, base, below par, bottom-shelf, BTEC, bum, cheap, cheap and nasty
-
Inferior, minor, trivial.
It almost seems that major discipline problems take care of themselves; it is the day-to-day little ticky-tacky issues that bind and scratch and itch until you find that you are boxed in with a class that you can no longer control.
Similar: poor man's, streets behind, ignorable, trifling, BTEC, cheapie, cullionly, daddocky, inferior, less than, nonsuperior, pound-shop
Talk about this word "ticky-tacky." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/ticky-tacky. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. ticky-tacky. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/ticky-tacky "ticky-tacky." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/ticky-tacky.Cite this
@misc{ticky_tacky_2026,
title = {ticky-tacky},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/ticky-tacky},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
