tickety-boo
/ˈtɪkɪti ˌbuː/
"tickety-boo" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“tickety-boo” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 11
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Correct, satisfactory.
Corpus desk
Index EN-tickety-boo · tickety-boo · English
tickety-boo · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 11 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "T" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | tickety-boo |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈtɪkɪti ˌbuː/ |
| Letters | 11 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “tickety-boo” in English
Rare enough to double-check
tickety-boo is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective, transcribed /ˈtɪkɪti ˌbuː/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Correct, satisfactory.".
Zero misspellings are on record for tickety-boo in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: 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 spre… The correct English form is tickety-boo, spelled T-I-C-K-E-T-Y---B-O-O.
Definition
- 1Correct, satisfactory.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how tickety-boo appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
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.
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!’
Etymology
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.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.