tacky1
[tak-ee]
- sticky to the touch; adhesive.
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Origin of tacky1
tacky2
[tak-ee]
- not tasteful or fashionable; dowdy.
- shabby in appearance; shoddy: a tacky, jerry-built housing development.
- crass; cheaply vulgar; tasteless; crude.
- gaudy; flashy; showy.
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Origin of tacky2
1880–85, Americanism; apparently identical with earlier tack(e)y small horse, pony, poor farmer; of obscure origin
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for tacky
Contemporary Examples
“All of the ideas were so awful and tacky so I said no,” she says.
Some of the sweaters he thought were true works of art, and some he thought were just tacky or funny.
At the Met, jewels by JAR may be tacky junk, but they tell us about ourselves.
It was timeless, that wacky, tacky character she created; the cigarette holder was genius, paradoxically regal.
Yes, the tabloids can be tacky, sensationalist, intentionally misleading, and ethically suspect.
Historical Examples
When the glaire has ceased to be “tacky,” the gold is laid on.
Bookbinding, and the Care of BooksDouglas Cockerell
Madison, my first town, showed me that my clothes were homemade and tacky.
This effect is further magnified if the “tacky” piece of rubber is packed in close contact with previously unaffected rubber.
The Preparation of Plantation RubberSidney Morgan
There is sufficient evidence to warrant the injunction that tacky rubber should be excluded from contact with sound rubber.
The Preparation of Plantation RubberSidney Morgan
It has been stated that sound rubber left in contact with tacky specimens was found to be unaffected after two years.
The Preparation of Plantation RubberSidney Morgan
tacky1
tackey
- slightly sticky or adhesivethe varnish was still tacky
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Word Origin
C18: from tack 1 (in the sense: stickiness)
tacky2
- shabby or shoddy
- ostentatious and vulgar
- US (of a person) dowdy; seedy
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Word Origin
C19: from dialect tacky an inferior horse, of unknown origin
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for tacky
adj.2
"in poor taste," 1862, adj. use of tackey (n.) "small or inferior horse" (1800), later "hillbilly, cracker" (1888), of uncertain origin.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper