Word.ws English Dictionary

tickety-boo

Syllables: tic·ke·ty boo/ˈtɪkɪti ˌbuː/

tickety-boo adjective: correct, satisfactory.

tickety-boo: correct, satisfactory
Image: Grey Geezer, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Adjective

tickety-boo (not comparable)

  1. (UK, informal) Correct, satisfactory.
    • I want everything to be all tickety-boo. I want to marry you properly according to the English law so that your people will know that I'm playing straight with you.1947, Nevil Shute [pseudonym; Nevil Shute Norway], chapter 6, in The Chequer Board, [London]: William Heinemann, →OCLC; republished New York, N.Y.: William Morrow & Company, 1947, →OCLC, page 220
    • Great days! The dawn’s breaking over no-man’s-land – Dewdrops glistening on the poppies in the early morning sun! ‘Good morning, corporal! All quiet on the Western Front?’ … ‘Tickety-boo, sir!’1975, Tom Stoppard, Travesties, New York, N.Y.: Grove Press, →ISBN, page 23

tickety-boo meaning in Tamil

tickety-boo in Tamil

நேர்த்தியான, நிறைவான

Synonyms of tickety-boo

All synonyms of tickety-boo

Forms of tickety-boo

alternative formticketty-boo
alternative formtickety boo
alternative formticketyboo
alternative formtiggity-boo
alternative formdiggity boo

Origin of tickety-boo

Origin uncertain. Chiefly and originally British slang. Possibly from an Indo-Aryan language: compare Hindi ठीक है, बाबू (ṭhīk hai, bābū, “it's all right, sir”). The phrase could have been picked up by British personnel in India before independence and spread in modified form to the United Kingdom and elsewhere in the Commonwealth. It may also be a corruption from French: "ce que t'es beau", "how beautiful you are", adopted similarly to "toodeloo' (bye-bye), which is a corruption of "À toute à l'heure" (see you later, today). Likely from WW1 Tommies. Alternately, it may be an extended version of that's the ticket, possibly influenced by peekaboo. Attested in English since the 1920s.

Questions about tickety-boo

What does tickety-boo mean?
Tickety-boo means correct, satisfactory.
What is tickety-boo in Tamil?
Tickety-boo in Tamil is நேர்த்தியான, நிறைவான. See Tickety-boo meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is tickety-boo?
Tickety-boo is an adjective.
How do you pronounce tickety-boo?
Tickety-boo is pronounced /ˈtɪkɪti ˌbuː/.

Words near tickety-boo in the dictionary

  1. tickets of occupation
  2. tickets to ride
  3. tickets-of-leave
  4. ticketty-boo
  5. tickety boo
  6. tickety-boo
  7. ticketyboo
  8. tickey
  9. tickey box
  10. tickey boxes
  11. tickey-box

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tickety-boo (page history and authors); tickety-boo (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-tickety-boo.ogg.

Cite this entry: “tickety-boo.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tickety-boo. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.