ticky-tacky
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 2.05 in modern English
28
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
4
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Cheap, low-quality building material, especially as that used to make conventional suburban housing of a uniform design.
American usage; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "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."
- "For there was no roadside ticky-tacky at all, no Burger Kings, no Golden Arches, no car lots, no shopping malls and parking lots, no sprawling cheap housing developments, none of the endless suburban crudscape that marked the ride from the airport to any major American city."
- "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."
- "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."
Etymology
Probably reduplication of tacky. Apparently coined by Malvina Reynolds in the early 1960s (see quotation, below).
Usage
- American usage
- Uncountable