tickey n.
1. (also ticcy, tickie, ticky) a threepenny piece (2½ cents post-decimalization).
![[SA]](/static/img/flags/sa.png "South Africa") | Cape Argus (S. Afr.) 26 Aug. 2: The Fields have not proved themselves worthy of ‘The Golden Dream,’ in which so many indulged, but yet they really might do more than descend to the vulgar tickey [DSAE]. | |
 | In Tents in the Transvaal 91: Threepenny bits are the lowest coins [...] they are in great request among the Kaffirs who call them ticcys. | |
| Fire Trumpet II 3: They will condescend to accept anything we may [...] give them, whether it be a ‘tickey’ (threepence) or a pair of old boots. | |
| Home Life on Ostrich Farm 212: Rewarded with no smaller sum than threepence, or, to give it its familiar colonial name – a tickey. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Boy’s Own Paper 4 Feb. 300: He [...] wiped the glass with his delicately perfumed handkerchief; and giving Togolosch a tickie (threepenny-piece), asked me to explain to him that he would like the snake’s skin sent up to the house. | |
| Under the Sjambok 126: The rebels, the men who hate the Boers, and will not pay a ticky (three-pennybit) hut tax! | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Truth (Syney) 10 July 1/2: In the land of lousy liars, / Rot gut bribes & tickey beer. | |
| Secret Service in S. Afr. 72: He knows where and how to obtain [...] a tickie. | |
| Africanderisms 496: Tickey This is the almost universal Cape designation of a threepenny piece. | |
| Young Traveller in S. Afr. 153: He may give a tickey. | |
| Last Division 77: Stars / Tinkled their light like silver tickeys. | |
| Boesman and Lena Act I: Tickey deposit for Boesman’s heart. Brandy bottle. | |
| (con. 1964) My Secret Hist. (1990) 199: I went to the bank in Zimba and changed the remaining fifty-four pounds into ‘tickeys’ – small grey threepence coins. | |
| Donkey’s Years 289: He was a tanner short. Two tickies. |
2. anything or anyone very small; also as adj.; thus phrs. half a brick/two bricks and a tickey high, very small.
| Tsotsi 36: There was only an old man in the shop buying a tickey plug of chew tobacco. | |
| CyberBraai Lex. at www.matriots.com 🌐 Tickey still means something small but considerable. You can say: ‘He is just two bricks and a tickey high, but he’s a tough oke.’. |
In compounds
(S.Afr.) a telephone kiosk.
| Press Comm. Telephone Branch, Johannesburg P.O. 1 Feb. in (1963) 150: The raiding of tickey boxes [...] by thieves using a master-key, or even jemmies and chisels costs the Post Office more than £5,500 a year. | |
| Paradise is Closing Down in Gray Theatre One (1978) 160: Bet you she’s phoning herself from the corner tickey-box just to impress us. | |
| Thoughts in a Makeshift Mortuary 34: I’ll run down to the tickey-box and phone Dr Van Coller. | |
| CyberBraai Lex. at www.matriots.com 🌐 A tickey was a small silver coin worth three pennies before decimalization in the Sixties. It could buy a newspaper, a packet of chips, [...] or pay for a telephone call (when inserted into a ‘tickey box’). | |
| News from Parched Mountain 96: He stared at the portable kiosk, and then, just loud enough for me to hear, said in surprise: ‘It’s a tickey box!’. | |
| Acid Alex 65: We discussed stealing a whole tiekiebox for the coins inside. |
(S.Afr.) a term of abuse; also as adj., cheap, second-rate.
| ‘Mita’ Casey and Co. (1978) 76: ‘Ja, Thomas, you tickey-line,’ Sponono said. Thomas looked up at his old flame, nodded his head and said, ‘Hiya, Spo.’. |
(S.Afr.) a pay-phone.
| Four People 258: Let me ring you back as you are on a tickey phone. |
(S.Afr.) making quick profits; also as adj., close-fisted, mean.
| Reminiscences of Johannesburg 82: Barney [...] asked how the — I dare sell my own shares, and that if I wanted three hundred threepenny bits, why didn’t I ask him to give me them, and not go tickey-snatching like a blasted (noun substantive) [DSAE]. | |
| Report 62: The Administration, instead of going to Court and perhaps being accused of tickey-snatching, abides by the reports of the valuators. | |
| Margaretha de la Porte 100: I bought shares, to sell again on the first rise: tickey-snatching, Father called it [DSAE]. |
In phrases
(S.Afr.) a coin on a thread that can be used to operate a telephone kiosk, then retrieved and used again.
| Het Suid-Westem 13 Mar. n.p.: Found guilty [...] for telephoning with a ‘long tickey’ from a public telephone booth. He [...] pleaded guilty to using [...] a ‘long tickey.’ The ‘long tickey’ exhibited in court was a ten cent coin suspended from a cotton thread which was attached with a piece of cellotape [DSAE]. |