From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishtackytack‧y /ˈtæki/ adjective 1 CHEAPif something is tacky, it looks cheap or badly made, and shows poor taste tacky ornaments2 especially American English showing that you do not have good judgment about what is socially acceptable It’s kind of tacky to give her a present that someone else gave you.3 STICKslightly sticky The paint’s still slightly tacky. —tackily adverb —tackiness noun [uncountable]
Examples from the Corpus
tacky• The paint's still a little tacky.• The room was decorated to look like a cartoon Swiss village, but managed to be cheerfully tacky.• The dough should be elastic, soft, tacky, but not sticky and the seeds should be evenly distributed.• Knead for 10 to 12 minutes till dough is soft and elastic, tacky but not sticky.• Yes, it was tacky, but some of those pictures were folk art.• cheap, tacky furniture in bright colors• The general quality of the whole machine is let down by the tacky keyboard.• tacky souvenirs• While Almond aims for tacky, spunky cabaret rock, he's about as subversive as Come Dancing.• When tacky, start fixing the shells in place.• Every notice is up to date, attractive, perfectly aligned on the purpose-built tacky surface.• I think it's kind of tacky to give her a present that someone else gave you.• Some of the things we did were inappropriate, were tacky, were wrong.Origin tacky 1. (1800-1900) tacky “horse in poor condition” ((1800-1900)). 2. (1700-1800) → TACK1 