tacky
1 Americanadjective
adjective
-
not tasteful or fashionable; dowdy.
-
shabby in appearance; shoddy.
a tacky, jerry-built housing development.
-
crass; cheaply vulgar; tasteless; crude.
-
gaudy; flashy; showy.
adjective
-
shabby or shoddy
-
ostentatious and vulgar
-
(of a person) dowdy; seedy
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of tacky1
First recorded in 1780–90; tack 1 + -y 1
Origin of tacky2
1880–85, apparently identical with earlier tack(e)y small horse, pony, poor farmer; of obscure origin
Explanation
Things that are tacky are cheap, flashy, garish, gaudy, loud, tawdry, or trashy. Tacky clothes are a fashion nightmare, and tacky comments are embarrassing for everyone involved. If you wore a bright orange suit to school, with a neon green hat, you'd be dressing in a tacky way. Tacky clothes are usually inexpensive yet flashy and showy — obnoxious. When people make tasteless, trashy comments, it's also considered tacky. But if you're in art class and someone says that your paper-mâché project is tacky, don't get mad — they probably just mean that it's not dry yet and still sticky to the touch.
Vocabulary lists containing tacky
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The tourism board should study how Wain sells a tacky California vacation.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 8, 2026
Money is the focus in the tracks like “La Moneda,” with Joel’s voice echoing through the backdrop as he proclaims that cash might change some tacky, incompetent chumps, but not him.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 25, 2026
Government auditors called out the purchase—not for being tacky but for how the worker got to the store: in a state car.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 27, 2026
"It was a tacky wicket as it was under cover for a while. After losing a few wickets, it was tough to get back into the game."
From Barron's ● Feb. 22, 2026
I think I heard Britt-Marie mutter something about being “appalled by the tacky linoleum they used to call flooring.”
From "Fast Pitch" by Nic Stone
But the idea of switching to a ball with a tackier surface, like those used in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, seemed to take hold as a potential, easy-to-implement solution.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 1, 2022
“We actually have a couple of options in terms of tackier balls,” Manfred said.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 18, 2021
"We actually have a couple of options in terms of tackier balls," Manfred said.
From Fox News ● Nov. 18, 2021
They’re quite different from Sony’s past foam tips, now with a thicker design that’s less rounded and with a tackier feel that helps them stay planted in your ears.
From The Verge ● Jun. 8, 2021
But I was the best tackier, and I was determined to get there first.
From "Schooled" by Gordon Korman
On Today, Manigault Newman interrupted host Savannah Guthrie several times to plug Unhinged in the tackiest possible way, once accusing Guthrie of not reading the book closely enough.
From Slate ● Aug. 13, 2018
As the name suggests, guests are invited to wear the ugliest, tackiest holiday gear they can find.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 3, 2017
And besides, the Duane Reade on my corner already has Halloween junk marked 50 percent off, so if anything, we're late to the world's greatest, tackiest party.
From The Verge ● Sep. 19, 2014
With tours of Graceland starting at an astonishing $33, I’d search instead for the best — by which I mean tackiest — Elvis souvenir for under $10.
From New York Times ● Jul. 25, 2013
So, whatever, we’d shopped for fudge, we’d looked at wind socks, and finally we went into a tourist shop and tried on the tackiest bathing suits we could find.
From "We Were Liars" by E. Lockhart
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
