Archive for December 8, 2010

adjective: tacky


The adjective for this week is one that is used in casual conversations; it is the word “tacky”. It is used when we want to describe something or someone as being in bad taste. For example:

Did you see that tacky dress that Noreen was wearing yesterday? It was purple and green and had pictures of horses all over it!

If I were you I wouldn’t wear running shoes with a dress. It’s really tacky.

Mark often tells tacky jokes about sex at the office. I wish he wouldn’t do that.

Don is always bragging about his girlfriend and saying what big breasts she has. It’s so tacky!

I don’t want to buy my sofa at ABC Store because all of the furniture they sell is really tacky.

The city decided to put up a statue of a Greek god in the middle of the downtown area! I can’t believe they would do such a tacky thing!

So we can use the word “tacky” to describe either a person’s clothes or the things they say, as in the first four examples. It can also be used to describe things of bad taste in general, as in the last two example. In all cases, the word “tacky” is negative.


%d bloggers like this: