Ticky-tacky

Quick meaning: Ticky-tacky is a noun meaning (US) Cheap, low-quality building material, especially as that used to make conventional suburban housing of a uniform design.

Meaning

(US) Cheap, low-quality building material, especially as that used to make conventional suburban housing of a uniform design.

More Meanings

1. (US) Made of this material; cheaply built, of low quality.
2. (by extension) Inferior, minor, trivial.

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.

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.

Synonyms for ticky-tacky

Depending on context, synonyms include cruddy, lousy, shoddy, ass, bad, base.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include tack, tacky, tawdry, tinselry, kitsch, baublery.

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