Might it be British slang? I know the Brits like to substitute rhyming words in their slang. Could it have once meant lucky?
Any other ideas or (better yet) anything definitive?
Thanks
The Story of “Ducky”.
A deceased but well-liked co-worker of mine used to say that things were “just ducky” when asked how she was doing. When asked what “ducky” meant, her reply was, “calm on the surface, but paddling like heal underneath”. Gawd, I miss her.
Hmm. My mother, and her mother before her (both raised in southeast England) use “ducky” in more of a pejorative sense, to mean “excessively cute or twee”, as in “The whole mantelpiece was covered in ducky little ornaments” or “She had a ducky little knitted cover over the toilet roll”.
I don’t know how widespread this usage is, though. My relatives tend to have a lot of… “eccentric” sayings 