ticky-tacky

Meanings

Noun

• Cheap, low-quality building material, especially as that used to make conventional suburban housing of a uniform design.

Adjective

• Made of this material; cheaply built, of low quality.
• Inferior, minor, trivial.

Origin

• Probably reduplication of tacky. Apparently coined by Malvina Reynolds in the early 1960s (see quotation, below).