tick

noun ticks

1. A tiny woodland arachnid of the suborder Ixodida. Sucking up all you can / Sucking up all you can suck and suck / Working up under my patience like a little tick / Fat little parasite (parasite) / Suck me dry / My fruit is bruised and borrowed / You thieving bastards / You have turned my blood cold and bitter

noun ticks

1. A relatively quiet but sharp sound generally made repeatedly by moving machinery. The steady tick of the clock provided a comforting background for the conversation.
2. A mark on any scale of measurement; a unit of measurement. At midday, the long bond is up a tick.
3. colloquial A short period of time, particularly a second. I'll be back in a tick.

   Similar: jiffy, sec, tic, bat of an eye, bit, blink of an eye, crack, eyeblink, flash, glimpse, half a mo, instant

4. A jiffy (unit of time defined by basic timer frequency).
5. A periodic increment of damage or healing caused by an ongoing status effect.
6. Each of the fixed time periods, in a tick-based game, in which players or characters may perform a set number of actions.
7. Commonwealth A mark (✓) made to indicate agreement, correctness, or acknowledgement. Indicate that you are willing to receive marketing material by putting a tick in the box

   Similar: checkmark

8. A bird seen (or heard) by a birdwatcher, for the first time that day, year, trip, etc., and thus added to a list of observed birds. There are few birders who have not had stringy ticks on their lists at some stage.
9. A whinchat (Saxicola rubetra).
10. A tap or light touch.
11. A slight speck.

verb ticks · ticking · ticked

1. To make a clicking noise similar to the movement of the hands of an analog clock. As 2020 ticked over into 2021, some 240 worksites were active on HS2's Phase 1 route between London and the West Midlands.
2. To make a tick or checkmark.

   Similar: tick off, check, check off

3. informal, intransitive To work or operate, especially mechanically. He took the computer apart to see how it ticked.
4. To strike gently; to pat. Therefore you Preachers out vvith your ſvvords and ſtrike at the root; ſpeak againſt covetouſneſs, and cry out upon it. Stand not ticking and toying at the branches, nor at the boughs, for then there vvill be nevv boughs and branches ſpring again of them, but ſtrike at the root, […]
5. transitive To add (a bird) to a list of birds that have been seen (or heard).

noun ticks

1. uncountable Ticking.
2. countable, uncountable A sheet that wraps around a mattress; the cover of a mattress, containing the filling. She had an old tick for mattress that she stuffed with dried moss.

Similar: ticking

noun

1. UK, colloquial, uncountable Credit, trust. When he had no funds he went on tick. When he could get no credit he went without, and was almost as happy.

   Similar: credit, trust

verb ticks · ticking · ticked

1. intransitive To go on trust, or credit.
2. transitive To give tick; to trust.

noun ticks

1. obsolete A goat. Tickhill, Tickham, Ticknock, Tickenhall Drive, Tickenhill Manor, Tickenhurst