A recent lesson got me thinking about the word tatty.

The word came up in a recent lesson. We both liked how it sounded.

Tatty is a useful little British word meaning old, worn and slightly untidy.

"He was wearing a tatty old jacket."

That got me thinking about other English words that have a similar quality: words where the sound somehow seems to fit the meaning.

This is sometimes called sound symbolism. It is not a precise rule, and English speakers don't normally think about it consciously. But some words seem to have a particular sound quality that reinforces their meaning.

Wonky

Wonky means slightly crooked, uneven or not quite right.

"The picture's a bit wonky."

There is something slightly unstable about the word itself. Wonky seems to wobble as you say it.

Rickety

Rickety means old, weak and unstable.

"We climbed up a rickety wooden staircase."

The repeated sounds give the word a slightly shaky, jerky quality. You can almost imagine the staircase moving underneath you.

Wobbly

Wobbly means unstable or moving from side to side.

"This table's a bit wobbly."

This is perhaps an even clearer example. The repeated w and b sounds give the word a sense of movement.

Dinky

Dinky means small and attractive, often in a slightly old-fashioned way.

"They have a dinky little garden."

The short, light sound of dinky seems to suit something small.

Fusty

Fusty describes something old-fashioned, stale or slightly unpleasant-smelling.

"The room had a rather fusty smell."

The word sounds heavy and stale. It almost seems to have been sitting in an old cupboard for fifty years.

Scruffy

Scruffy means untidy or slightly dirty in appearance.

"He turned up looking rather scruffy."

The rough scr- beginning seems appropriate for untidy hair, old clothes or an unkempt appearance.

Shoddy

Shoddy means badly made or of poor quality.

"The workmanship was really shoddy."

There is something blunt and unpleasant about the sound of shoddy, which fits the meaning rather well.

Ramshackle

Ramshackle describes something old and badly maintained, especially a building.

"They lived in a ramshackle little cottage."

The word itself feels as though it has been put together rather badly. It is long, slightly chaotic and rather fun to say.

Is this really a thing?

Sound symbolism is a real area of linguistic research, although we should be careful not to exaggerate it.

There are some recurring associations between particular sounds and certain meanings across languages. For example, words containing high front vowels such as i are sometimes associated with smallness or lightness, while larger, heavier sounds can be associated with size or weight.

English also has groups of words that seem to share a particular sound pattern:

wobbly, wiggly, wonky, winky

tiny, teeny, dinky, little

tatty, scruffy, shoddy, shabby

The connection is not always logical. It is more of a feeling.

And perhaps that is part of what makes these words memorable.

We don't just learn that wonky = slightly crooked. We can also feel something slightly crooked in the word itself.

A useful way to learn vocabulary

When you meet a new English word, it can be useful to notice more than its dictionary definition.

Ask yourself:

What does it mean?

What does it sound like?

Does the sound seem to fit the meaning?

Does it feel pleasant, unpleasant, heavy, light, sharp, soft, awkward or playful?

This can be especially useful with informal English, where words are often chosen partly because of their sound and emotional effect.

So perhaps tatty is more than simply a word meaning "old and worn".

It is a word that sounds tatty.

And once you start noticing this, English vocabulary becomes a little more interesting.


- See perhaps my other column on sound symbolism from April 2026