tick
verb/tɪk/
/tɪk/
Verb Forms
Idioms Phrasal Verbs| present simple I / you / we / they tick | /tɪk/ /tɪk/ |
| he / she / it ticks | /tɪks/ /tɪks/ |
| past simple ticked | /tɪkt/ /tɪkt/ |
| past participle ticked | /tɪkt/ /tɪkt/ |
| -ing form ticking | /ˈtɪkɪŋ/ /ˈtɪkɪŋ/ |
- [intransitive] (of a clock, etc.) to make short, light, regular repeated sounds to mark time passing
- In the silence we could hear the clock ticking.
- a ticking bomb
- tick away While we waited the taxi's meter kept ticking away.
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadverb- loudly
- relentlessly
- away
- …
Definitions on the go
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- [transitive] (British English) (North American English check)tick something to put a mark (✓) next to an item on a list, an answer, etc.
- Please tick the appropriate box.
- Tick ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to each question.
- I've ticked the names of the people who have paid.
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadverb- simply
- mentally
- off
- …
Word Originverb Middle English (as a verb in the sense ‘pat, touch’): probably of Germanic origin and related to Dutch tik (noun), tikken (verb) ‘pat, touch’. The noun was recorded in late Middle English as ‘a light tap’; current senses date from the late 17th cent.
Idioms
See tick in the Oxford Advanced American DictionarySee tick in the Oxford Learner's Dictionary of Academic Englishthe clock is ticking (down)
- used to say that there's not much time left before something happens
- The clock is ticking down to midnight on New Year’s Eve.
- The clock is ticking for one mystery lottery winner who has less than 24 hours to claim a £64 million prize.
tick all the/somebody’s boxes
- (British English, informal) to do exactly the right things to please somebody
- This is a movie that ticks all the boxes.
- The house we would like to buy ticks all our boxes.
what makes somebody tick
- what makes somebody behave in the way that they do
- I've never really understood what makes her tick.
Check pronunciation:
tick