tacky
lacking style or good taste
TRANSLATION
tacky = kitschig, geschmacklos, billig tacky = klebrig (woerterbuch.info) --- GOOGLE INDEX tacky: approximately 4,800,000 hits
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
The Prime Minister has criticised some of the industry that has developed around Princess Diana's death as inappropriate and TACKY.
(BBC News)
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I wouldn't say I invented TACKY, but I definitely brought it to its present high popularity.
- Bette Midler, actress and singer
(BBC News)
---
I wouldn't say I invented TACKY, but I definitely brought it to its present high popularity.
- Bette Midler, actress and singer
Did you
know?
tacky
adjective
- lacking style or good taste (tacky clothes)
- neglected and in a state of disrepair (a tacky old cabin in the woods)
- distasteful or offensive; tasteless (a tacky comment)
- slightly adhesive or gummy to the touch; sticky
(The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
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WORD ORIGIN
The term tacky originated in the United States around 1860 and referred to a horse of low quality. Its usage in Britain is relatively new however. The root word - tack - refers to a nail and comes from the German Zacken, like the prongs on a pitchfork, and also from the Old French tache, a nail used for fastening something.
In English, there are several types of tacks such as tin tacks, thumb tacks and carpet tacks, all of which are small, sharp nail-like objects for fastening objects. Tack is also a verb that describes the act of fastening something (tack the carpet to the floor). Tacky can also mean sticky, such as a surface that has recently been painted or glued and is not fully dry.
To confuse matters further, tack has even more meanings such as "hard tack" and "soft tack" (a hard biscuit and bread eaten on board ships in former times). Tack also refers to a horse harness. Exactly how all of these definitions are related to a horse of low quality, and thus the general meaning of something of poor quality, is not clear.
In a 1962 song popularised by folksinger Pete Seeger, the expression "ticky-tacky" entered the language. Ticky was added for rhyming purposes. The expression, as one can derive from the lyrics, refers to low-quality material or houses, and was intended to make fun of suburban growth in the United States:
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky-tacky,
Little boxes, little boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.
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SYNONYMS
cheap, cheesy, crude, dowdy, gaudy, grubby, messy, ragged, ratty, shabby, slovenly, tasteless, unkempt, untidy, vulgar
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SMUGGLE OWAD INTO TODAY'S CONVERSATION:
"Many TV commercials are too tacky for my taste."
adjective
- lacking style or good taste (tacky clothes)
- neglected and in a state of disrepair (a tacky old cabin in the woods)
- distasteful or offensive; tasteless (a tacky comment)
- slightly adhesive or gummy to the touch; sticky
(The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
---
WORD ORIGIN
The term tacky originated in the United States around 1860 and referred to a horse of low quality. Its usage in Britain is relatively new however. The root word - tack - refers to a nail and comes from the German Zacken, like the prongs on a pitchfork, and also from the Old French tache, a nail used for fastening something.
In English, there are several types of tacks such as tin tacks, thumb tacks and carpet tacks, all of which are small, sharp nail-like objects for fastening objects. Tack is also a verb that describes the act of fastening something (tack the carpet to the floor). Tacky can also mean sticky, such as a surface that has recently been painted or glued and is not fully dry.
To confuse matters further, tack has even more meanings such as "hard tack" and "soft tack" (a hard biscuit and bread eaten on board ships in former times). Tack also refers to a horse harness. Exactly how all of these definitions are related to a horse of low quality, and thus the general meaning of something of poor quality, is not clear.
In a 1962 song popularised by folksinger Pete Seeger, the expression "ticky-tacky" entered the language. Ticky was added for rhyming purposes. The expression, as one can derive from the lyrics, refers to low-quality material or houses, and was intended to make fun of suburban growth in the United States:
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky-tacky,
Little boxes, little boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.
---
SYNONYMS
cheap, cheesy, crude, dowdy, gaudy, grubby, messy, ragged, ratty, shabby, slovenly, tasteless, unkempt, untidy, vulgar
---
SMUGGLE OWAD INTO TODAY'S CONVERSATION:
"Many TV commercials are too tacky for my taste."
