Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US) unattractive, second-rate.

1862		K. Stone Jrnl 16 Feb. in Brokenburn (1955) 89: Anna Dobbs, Mr. and Mrs. Norris, and Rose’s mother [...] What a weary, bedraggled tacky-looking set they were .
1890		E. Field ‘The Conversazzhyony’ Little Bk of Western Verse 152: She wuz short an’ tacky.
1900		Ade More Fables in Sl. (1960) 98: He was a Gentleman that wouldn’t want to go anywhere with a Lady whose Lid was Tacky.
1912		R.W. Brown ‘Word-List From Western Indiana’ in DN III:viii 591: tacky, adj. Rough or careless in appearance.
1922		F.S. Fitzgerald ‘The Diamond as Big as the Ritz’ in Bodley Head Scott Fitzgerald V (1963) 40: A function that [...] would doubtless be hailed by a Chicago beef-princess as ‘perhaps a little tacky.’.
1931		E.A. Settle ‘From the Blackjacks’ in Botkin Folk-Say 256: You said quilts was tacky and you wouldn’t have one in your house.
1943		C. McCullers Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1986) 36: He had to be dragged around in a tacky old wagon.
1955		J.L. Herlihy ‘A Summer for the Dead’ in Sleep of Baby Filbertson and Other Stories (1964) 48: What’d he think his tacky little drugstore was, the Mocombo night club?
1967		J. Rechy Numbers (1968) 21: An insane clutter of flashy, tacky clothes, bright colors battling each other for prominence.
1977		C. McFadden Serial 46: Kate knew the tacky little chick in the wide-leg shorts was Marlene.
1989		Kirk & Madsen After The Ball 322: Did you see that tacky schmattah he was wearing?
1993		I. Welsh Trainspotting 130: Now they are getting pished in a tacky chrome-and-neon meat market.
2005		L. Theroux Call of the Weird (2006) 132: Mother says it looks tacky.
2014		T. Black Artefacts of the Dead [ebook] A tacky, flat-roofed oblong of flats that looked to have been built in the seventies – the decade that style forgot.
2022		A. Kirzman Giuliani 35: ‘He cheated on her pretty much the whole time [...] Obvious stuff that was really tacky’.

2. (also tackey) of clothes, furnishings etc, dowdy, in poor taste.

1883		I.M. Rittenhouse Maud (1939) 262: Two little cards (with his name printed on them in gilt. Tackey? Ugh).
1896		W.C. Gore Student Sl. in Cohen (1997) 4: tacky a. 1. Dowdy, not in style. 2. Intellectual, but careless as to personal appearance.
1909		L.W. Payne Jr ‘Word-List From East Alabama’ in DN III:v 378: tacky, adj. [...] out of style, showy, ‘loud.’.
1931		K.C. Star 2 Dec. 28: Englishwomen have the knack of looking tacky even when they are wealthy and titled [DA].
1949		J. Archibald ‘State Penmanship’ Popular Detective Jan. 🌐 He followed the clerk into a tacky back room where the trunks and bags of delinquents had been stored.
1958		T. Capote Breakfast at Tiffany’s 40: Diamonds, yes. But it’s tacky to wear diamonds before you’re forty.
1977		C. McFadden Serial 95: Wall-to-wall carpet — that’s incredibly tacky.
2000		Guardian 6 Jan. 1: US firms cashing in on the market for Diana goods – many of them criticised as tacky.
2004		L. Redhead Peepshow [ebook] Have a good time in Queensland. Send me a tacky postcard.
2021		T. Swerdlow Straight Dope [ebook] [T]he terrace is right over the pool, something wonderfully South Beach tacky about it.

3. (US campus) drunk.

1900		E.H. Babbitt ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 66: tacky, adj. Intoxicated.
1916		O.O. McIntyre Day By Day in New York 20 Mar. [synd. col.] Glenmore (Stuffy) Davis, to whom life is a sort of continuous tacky party.

4. (US campus) untidy, unkempt.

1900		E.H. Babbitt ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 66: tacky, adj. Untidy.
2007		W.D. Myers ‘madonna’ in What They Found 163: I was looking a little tacky, but the place wasn’t too tore up.

5. of individuals or ideas, unsophisticated, vulgar.

1947		B. Schulberg Harder They Fall (1971) 236: Some jerk tosses a handful of tacky truths in your path.
1978		R. Price Ladies’ Man (1985) 181: Blurting out lines so transparent and tacky that even I was offended.
1989		C. Hiaasen Skin Tight 272: You’re not the one who played grab-the-tittie with your client [. . .] It’s so . . . tacky.
1999		Observer Screen 20 June 23: Tacky ‘laugh-a-minute’ TV.
2009		Eve. Standard 18 May 19/4: The decision was taken to stop Chelsea becoming too ‘tacky.’.
2022		J. Hannaham Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit 220: She should [...] not enter the competition for World’s Tackiest Ho.