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Tick   /tɪk/   Listen
Tick

noun
1.
A metallic tapping sound.  Synonym: ticking.
2.
Any of two families of small parasitic arachnids with barbed proboscis; feed on blood of warm-blooded animals.
3.
A mark indicating that something has been noted or completed etc..  Synonyms: check, check mark.
4.
A light mattress.



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"Tick" Quotes from Famous Books



... too much tick to any of the fellows, Mother Brown," he began. "You know it isn't always easy to get money ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty

... is a wonderful comfort. Tick-tack, tick-tack! and I think of you stretched asleep and happy and growing up to be a man, and the minutes running and ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... plain. That clock has not been wound since we come to live here. I don't believe a hand has touched it since the night he was carried feet foremost out of that room. But Mary said she could count the strokes go tick, tick, tick! She listened till she could have counted fifty, for she was struck dumb, and just as plain as the clock before her face she could see the minute-hand and the pendulum, both of 'em dead still. Now, how do ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote

... the bravery of those boys. The first wave went down like "wheat before the reaper." When the time came for the second wave to go over there was not a man standing of the first wave, yet not a lad faltered. Each gazed at his watch and on the arranged tick of the clock leaped over. In many cases they did not get any farther than the first wave. The last wave, though they knew each had to do the work of three, were in their places and started on their forlorn hope at the ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett

... he takes the open air, Drawes up his wings with tactick care; Whilst th' expert falcon swift doth climbe In subtle mazes serpentine; And to advantage closely twin'd She gets the upper sky and wind, Where she dissembles to invade, And lies a pol'tick ambuscade. ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace

... stand, don't you see? And we're getting to the front with our wholesale department (of course—ha! ha! my wife's father ought to know how I'm getting on), so you're welcome to look over my books. Our trade is a cash trade so far as our retail trade goes, and we're mighty careful who gets tick from us on the wholesale trade. We're developing a ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland

... prod'uct ful'crum rus'tic hob'by prob'lem hud'dle rub'bish loft'y ros'ter pub'lic sulk'y log'ic tor'rent pub'lish sul'try af'flux bank'rupt kin'dred scrib'ble am'bush cam'phor pick'et trip'let an'them hav'oc tick'et trick'le an'nals hag'gard wick'et liz'ard as'pect ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey

... nigger, an' kin do a few small tings— cook de grub, wash up de cups an' sarsers, pull a oar, clean yer boots, fight de Eskimos if you wants me to, an' ginrally to scrimmage around a'most anything. Moreover, I eats no more dan a babby—'sep wen I's hungry—an' I'll foller you, massa, troo tick and tin—to de Nort Pole, or de Sout Pole, or de East Pole, or de West Pole—or any oder pole wotsomediver—all de same to Butterface, s'long's you'll let 'im stick ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne

... If they gave tick, they would never recover the money, and if every Irishman is a knowing scoundrel, the publican is a trifle more knowledgable than the customer, whose ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey

... tick, tick, went the little French clock on the mantelpiece. Suddenly it struck her that it was a long while that she had been left alone in this room. She glanced at the clock; it really was almost an hour. All ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge

... Tick, tack, tock! Only look at the clock. He works away the whole day long, And every hour he sings a song. Ding, dong, ding! So we'll ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various

... he whispered, picking out carefully the trails of four pairs of footsteps which had passed to where they stood, evidently coming to an end. "Yes, sah; dose niggah foots. Carry Massa Allen. All 'tick down ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn

... and going home at night to tell his landlady how he had been seeking for a job. I believe this kind of existence was not unpleasant to Alick himself, and he might have long continued to enjoy idleness and a life on tick; but he had a comrade, let us call him Brown, who grew restive. This fellow was continually threatening to slip his cable for the States, and at last, one Wednesday, Glasgow was left widowed of her Brown. Some months afterwards, Alick met another ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... money—not much—and transformed Camp One. Every bunk was provided with a tick, which the men could fill with hay, balsam, or hemlock, as suited them. Cheap but attractive curtains on wires at once brightened the room and shut each man's "bedroom" from the main hall. The deacon seat remained but was supplemented by a half-dozen simple and comfortable chairs. In the center ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White

... The Death Watch tick'd behind the panel'd oak, Inexplicable tremors shook the arras, And echoes strange and mystical awoke, The fancy ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... still that every tick of the Dresden clock could be distinctly heard. When Miss Gorham, Alora's governess, turned a page of her book, the rustle was appallingly audible. And the clock ticked on, and Miss Gorham turned page after page, and still the ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum

... and they only let me have money at certain times, because it's what they facetiously call tied-up: though why they've tied it up, or where they've tied it up, I hav'nt the smallest idea. So, though I tick for nearly everything, - for men at College, Giglamps, go upon tick as naturally as the crows do on the sheep's backs, - I sometimes am rather hard up for ready dibs; and then I give the Mum a gentlemanly hint of this, and she tips me. By-the-way," continued ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... this black thread through the blaze— "It should be" balked by "here it cannot be." And oft the man's soul springs into his face As if he saw again and heard again His sage that bade him "Rise" and he did rise. Something, a word, a tick o' the blood within Admonishes: then back he sinks at once To ashes, who was very fire before, In sedulous recurrence to his trade Whereby he earneth him the daily bread; And studiously the humbler for that ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps

... condition and stanchness of the hounds, and the admirable view that has been afforded them of their peculiar style of hunting. At this interesting period, a "regular swell" from Melton Mowbray, unknown to everyone except his tailor, to whom he owes a long tick, makes his appearance and affords abundance of merriment for our sportsmen. He is just turned out of the hands of his valet, and presents the very beau-ideal of his caste—"quite the lady," in fact. His hat is stuck on one side, ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees

... have the book as soon as possible, or nothing can withhold him from madly purchasing the book on tick.... Then shall we see him sweetly restored to the chair of Longinus—to dictate in smooth and modest phrase the laws of verse; to prove that Theocritus first introduced the Pastoral, and Virgil and Pope brought it to its perfection; that Gray ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... he couldn't have his own selfish way, Hen, with much grumbling, arranged the coats on two chairs not far from the fire. When he considered the coats dry enough he crawled into his chosen bunk, grumbling at the coarse tick filled only with dried leaves, and was covered by Dick and Greg. Then the other fellows, after replenishing the fire, sat down to ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock

... we shall discuss at length under "Form." Now the pleasure of enumeration, like that of a refrain, is in part at least a pleasure in muscle pattern. My two-year-old daughter composed a song which well illustrates the fascination of enumeration. The refrain "Tick-tock" was borrowed from a song which ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell

... they passed, to feel the cruelty of that inexorable clock in the stillness; for the minutes passed too quickly. How could it be else, when each one of them might have heralded a hope and did not; when each bequeathed its little legacy of despair? But was there need that each new clock-tick as it came should say, as the last had said: "Another second has gone of the little hour that is left; another inch of the space that parts us from the sentence that knows no respite or reprieve"? Was it not enough that the end must come, without the throb of that monotonous ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... and rising with a puzzled look, walked to the window and thrust his head into the vines; then drawing his hand over his eyes, he resumed his place, and all was silent again, save the clock with its monotonous tick, tick, beating as calmly as, though human passions were trifles, and the passing away of a soul from earth, only the falling of the niches ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur

... over all that a million times? My mind's sore workin' with it; there ain't a thought in me that don't ache from it. But David's right. We've got to part. I put your things in this poke here," she said, and she gave him a bag made from an old pillow tick, with a few clothes lumping it half full. "I'll carry the baby, Laban." She pulled back from him with the child in her arms. "Or no, you can carry her; you'll have to leave her, too, and you've got a right to all the ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells

... that perception. I cite a simple example in which I first observed this fact. Since I was a child there had been in my bed-room a clock, the loud ticking of which habit of many years prevented my hearing. Once, as I lay awake in bed, I heard it tick suddenly three times, then fall silent and stop. The occurrence interested me, I quickly got a light and examined the clock closely. The pendulum still swung, but without a sound; the time was right. I inferred that the clock must ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... again the beach, with the girl's figure in the pool. The picture grew hazy; I realized Mercer was trying to picture the bottom of the sea. Then he pictured again the girl lying in the pool, and once again the sea. I was aware of the soft little tick in the center of my brain that announced that the switch had been moved ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various

... a haze of gold! Oh, merry was I that winter night, And gleeful our little one's din, And tender the grace of my darling's face As we watched the new year in. But a voice—a spectre's, that mocked at love— Came out of the yonder hall; "Tick-tock, tick-tock!" 't was the solemn clock That ruefully croaked to all. Yet what knew we of the griefs to be In the year we longed to greet? Love—love was the theme of the sweet, sweet dream I fancied might ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field

... thing went on day after day. Tama began to grow weak and ill. He was haggard with anxiety, spending his days in listening to the regular tick-tick of the watch, and his nights in trying to keep it alive. In vain he sat up with it night after night, holding it in his hands, caressing it, wrapping it in warm clothes, and laying it beside the fire, even, ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay

... the room while his confederate remains inside with the others. He hides an article which the rest of the players have selected, in an adjoining room which is totally dark, placing a watch with a moderately loud tick, either on, or as near to the hidden object as he can. The rest of the players must not know anything about the watch, as they are kept guessing how the player who is out, succeeds in finding the hidden article ...
— Games for Everybody • May C. Hofmann

... assortment of influences,—through the order and gravity and solemn monotone of life at home, with the unceasing tick-tack of the clock forever resounding through clean, empty-seeming rooms,—through the sea, ever shining, ever smiling, dimpling, soliciting, like a magical charger who comes saddled and bridled ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various

... Bill's, the worst I hated to go in. Standin' on the stoop, I could hear the tall clock tickin' solemnly inside—"tick-tock, tick-tock," jest as plain as if I wuz settin' aside uv it. The door wuz shet, yet I knew jest what Bill wuz doin'; he was settin' in the old red easy-chair, lookin' down at the floor—like this. Strange, ain't it, how sometimes when you love folks you know jest what they 're doin', ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field

... purchased in Rhode Island a good stock of winter clothing for himself and Eric, a couple of thick blanket rugs, and two empty bed-tick covers—to be afterwards filled with the down they should procure from the sea birds. He bought, too, a strong lamp, with a supply of paraffin oil, and several dozen boxes of matches; so that he and Eric should not have to adopt the tinder ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson

... them off regularly. The clock ticks with always the same force and with the same space of time between the ticks, yet we hear tick-tack, tick-tack; we can prove the difference to be in our ear, for it requires but little effort to hear tick-tack or tack-tick, tack-tick. The ticking has not ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester

... empty, and the sodden thatch sagged between the beams. A gray squirrel was in possession of the verandah, as if the house had been untenanted for thirty years instead of three days. Ameera's mother had removed everything except some mildewed matting. The tick-tick of the little scorpions as they hurried across the floor was the only sound in the house. Ameera's room and the other one where Tota had lived were heavy with mildew; and the narrow staircase leading to the roof ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling

... their majority, and those that will toll for my decease. It is enough for me that I have a brother and a sister—that my brother's son will inherit my estates—and that, in the meantime, he grudges me every tick in that clock. What then? If he had been my uncle, I had done the same. Meanwhile, I see as little of him as good breeding will permit. On the face of a rich man's heir is written the rich man's memento mori! But revenons a nos moutons. Yes, if you give your daughter no fortune, ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... his continual challenge and alarm. That this mysterious hummingbird of ocean—which, had it but brilliancy of hue, might, from its evanescent liveliness, be almost called its butterfly, yet whose chirrup under the stern is ominous to mariners as to the peasant the death-tick sounding from behind the chimney jamb—should have its special haunt at the Encantadas, contributes, in the seaman's mind, not a ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville

... was fine, the people were hot, perspiration trickled amid the curls, and handkerchiefs taken from pockets were mopping red foreheads; and now and then a warm wind that blew from the river gently stirred the border of the tick awnings hanging from the doors of the public-houses. A little lower down, however, one was refreshed by a current of icy air that smelt of tallow, leather, and oil. This was an exhalation from the Rue des Charrettes, full of large black ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert

... dwelling, and entered, and stood at the north window, looking over toward the dim house from which they had escaped. Out from the still night of darkness, came a low thunder from beyond the Yser. In the tick of a pulse-beat, the moaning of a shell throbbed on the air and, with instant vibrancy, the singing string of the piano at their back answered the flight of the shell. And in the same breath, they heard a roar at the railroad, and the crash of timbers. ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason

... he'll do? The neighbors are comin' for fifty miles round, two is comin' up a hundred miles, and you can't—Jinny, you can't do it. I bin sick of answerin' questions all these years 'bout you and Jake, an' I ain't goin' through it again. I've told more lies than there's straws in a tick." ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker

... bad about twenty years ago, caused I think by a cold in the head. When in bed I can hear the tick of a watch with the left ear but the other is almost stone deaf. I am not much at a loss in ordinary conversation, but in trying to hear people speak I lose much of what is said. Although I have no real pain, ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various

... his eyes gleaming with rage. What could she do? She threw a hasty glance about the shanty. She knew Andy was under the straw tick in the garret and could not hear the low conversation going on in ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... tick of the clock stirred her to a new excitement. At last there came a knock upon the door, a cloak was thrown about her from behind, a heavy veil was drooped about her golden hair, and she was led, by whom she knew not, to the street, ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr

... man turned on his heel, without replying, and walked up the siding. The spare man shuffled back to the uneasy group. "Jim's ez full ez a tick, ez ushel," he ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather

... female created He them," said Dunkerley, ticking his way down the page. "Which (tick, tick) was damned hard (tick, tick) on ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells

... so vital and impressive that all her life Cynthia was to recall the setting of the scene. The whiteness of the sunlight streaming into the east windows, the deep red of the wall paper, the tick of the marble clock on the shelf, and the crackle of the cannel coal fire on the hearth. While she waited for the visitor she was unconsciously preparing for the part and the lines of what was to follow. By the time the slow, light steps were ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock

... seesaw, dance, lurch, dodge; logan^, loggan^, rocking-stone, vibroscope^. V. oscillate; vibrate, librate^; alternate, undulate, wave; rock, swing; pulsate, beat; wag, waggle; nod, bob, courtesy, curtsy; tick; play; wamble^, wabble^; dangle, swag. fluctuate, dance, curvet, reel, quake; quiver, quaver; shake, flicker; wriggle; roll, toss, pitch; flounder, stagger, totter; move up and down, bob up and down &c adv.; pass and repass, ebb and flow, come and go; vacillate &c 605; teeter ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... maize, hung Over his shoulders; his forehead was high; and glasses with horn bows Sat astride on his nose, with a look of wisdom supernal. Father of twenty children was he, and more than a hundred Children's children rode on his knee, and heard his great watch tick. Four long years in the times of the war had he languished a captive, Suffering much in an old French fort as the friend of the English. Now, though warier grown, without all guile or suspicion, Ripe in wisdom was he, but patient, and simple, and childlike. He was beloved by all, and ...
— The Children's Own Longfellow • Henry W. Longfellow

... apparently, nothing was changed. Father, mother, brother, friends, gravitated mechanically in their accustomed orbits. The same daily facts repeated themselves monotonous and regular as the tick-tack of the clock. ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau

... about time for dinner, which was always pulled off on the tick of the clock. On the ranch in camp the cook always calls "Grub pile!" for the hands. In the home ranch he's more particular, and he says, "Come and git it!" when dinner's ready. But here, in our new house, ...
— The Man Next Door • Emerson Hough

... Darco, 'is just this: It is Binda's endrance. She is a leedle vat you would call distraught, not mat, but ankrished. She is very pretty, she is very bale. She stands at the door, and Raoul does not see her. She is there for vive zeconds to a tick, not more, not less—vive zeconds; write it down. Enter Binda, pause, unobserved, vive zeconds. Have you got it down? She is priddy, she is bale, a leedle touch of colour under the eyes; she is tressed in vite, some filmy kind of stuff, ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray

... fat man with dull eyes aleer— Within the shadow of the van; And I was on the point to rise To send him spinning 'mid the wheels And stop his leering grin with mud ... And would have done it in a tick ... When, suddenly, alive with fright, She started, with red, parted lips, As though she guessed we'd come to grips, And turned her black eyes full on me ... And as I looked into their light My heart forgot the lust of fight, And something shot me to the quick, And ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various

... apple-tree cut the gloom like great silvery wings of a brooding bird. The grass in the yard was like a shaggy silver fleece. Charlotte paid no more attention to it all than to her own breath, or a clock tick which she would have to withdraw from ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... half a tick. Humphrey, I'm only a light weight, and you fight at twelve stone ten, but I'm damned if I'm going to stand still and see you hitting ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson

... The watch hands pointed to the second which had been given for the assault to begin, and instantly, to the tick, the guns lifted and made a curtain of fire round the Chateau of Hooge, beyond the Menin road, six ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... think it a very powerful book," said Dove solemnly. "That part, you know, where the boy listens to the clock ticking in the night, and thinks to himself that with every tick, a soul goes home to God. A ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... again paused. "Say, Billy, you said the 'late' Overland Red Summers. You took particular noise to make me hear that word 'late.' Have you got any objections to explainin' that there idea? I been examinin' the works of that word 'late,' and it don't tick right to me. 'Late' ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... along the line of the fragrant shore, the regular dip of the oar marking the passage of the seconds, like the soft, lisping tick of certain pleasant old clocks, the nine-o'clock gun roared its admonition from the deck of the "guardian of the port," and the bells of San Lazzaro jangled sweetly on the night air. And then it was that May roused to ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller

... scientific eye and the detached scientific mind," said he. "To a man of philosophic temperament like myself the blood-tick, with its lancet-like proboscis and its distending stomach, is as beautiful a work of Nature as the peacock or, for that matter, the aurora borealis. It pains me to hear you speak of it in so ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle

... him," grunted Barlow. "And he was as full of hate as a tick of dog's blood. From the steer he gave me I can ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory

... mustn't look where I put them," and she insisted that not even Nan should know the mystery of the clocks. "This will be a real surprise party," finished Dorothy, having put each of five clocks in its hiding place, and leaving the tick-ticks to think it over, all by themselves, before ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore • Laura Lee Hope

... a shop that he broods over with a housewife's solicitous eyes, watchful and jealous, lest some one walks over him. With my eye I tick off his ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... the Beetle's Gamasis, the Tick who so often soils the ventral amethyst of our Geotrupes. No; the prizes of life do not fall to the share of the useful. Necrophori and Geotrupes devote themselves to works of general salubrity; and these two corporations, so interesting in the ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre

... count it, and the clock went on ticking; one piece for each tick of the clock. He did not know many of the pieces; and McMurtagh, as they were held up to him, broke the silence only to answer arithmetically, "Doubloon,—value eight dollars two shillings, New England;" or, "Pistole,—value ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson

... have been the firelight that did it; it may have been the vision of her children who lived only in the life that she saw beyond the old, old, open door: or perhaps it was the wedding finery that lay over a nearby chair: or the familiar tick, tick, tick, of the clock in the arms of the fat cupid who neglected his bow and arrows in a vain attempt to do away with time—whatever it was that brought it about, the woman dreamed again the dreams ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright

... if I get you this berth, when we come in, and I am short, you must let me go on tick till ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat

... headache, and painfully swollen lymph nodes; disease progresses rapidly and without antibiotic treatment leads to pneumonic form with a death rate in excess of 50%. Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever - tick-borne viral disease; infection may also result from exposure to infected animal blood or tissue; geographic distribution includes Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe; sudden onset of fever, headache, and muscle aches followed by hemorrhaging ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... sighed the King. "This argument reminds me of the story of Tom Tick, which my father ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum

... my duns would do the same, even if it were only my washerwoman; but there's no more tick for me here, except this old watch of my father's, which serves to remind me of what I cannot obtain from others—time; but, however, there is a time for all things, and when the time comes that my romance is ready, my creditors will obtain ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... smile. "Don't," he said, "again allude to any such thing as selling on tick! Some time back a partner in our establishment got several ounces of goods for his relatives on credit, and up to this date the bill hasn't as yet been settled; the result being that we've all had to make the amount good, so that we've entered into an agreement ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... was long and soft and thick, and we decided to shear off a little to stuff our mattress with. We thought it wouldn't take much. So I took the nurse's scissors, and we slipped down into the library with the empty mattress-tick. ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston

... to sing illumined her, and she yet knew that she was in some way guilty, she accused herself of disregard for that dear harp while it was brilliant and serviceable. "Now I remember what poor music I made of it! I touched it with cold fingers. The sound was thin, as if it had no heart. Tick-tick!—I fancy I touched it with ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... was this way. The General, he had his breakfast at 8:45 A.M. to the tick. He might have been a Long Island commuter. At 8:42 A.M. I'd go down to the Thirty-fourth Street ferry to meet him—I mean I'd see the Zigler into position at two thousand (I began at three thousand, but that was cold and ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling

... was still round about her, nobody was there. She heard only the tick-tock of a small clock and now and then a low sound in the stove, from which she inferred that a few new sticks of wood were being shoved in from the hall. Gradually she recalled that Geert had spoken the ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... wheelbarrow. They left behind almost all their possessions, and took away, so to speak, only what they had on their backs and a change of clothes. A few things for remembrance were to be sent after them by goods-train: a few books, portraits, the old grandfather's clock, whose tick-tock seemed to them to be the beating of their hearts.—The air was keen. No one was stirring in the town: the shutters were closed and the streets empty. They said nothing: only the old servant spoke. Madame Jeannin was striving to fix in her ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland

... stroll backwards and forwards by the lakeside. Encouragement was all very well; but... "Shall I—shall I not? Shall I—shall I not? Shall I—shall I not?" The eternal question went tick-tack, tick-tack, to the rhythm of his march. He glared at vacancy, and tried hard to ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland

... the newly dug esculent at the door, and replacing the spade in its own corner of the cabin. At the same moment Oonah returned, after disposing of her eggs, and handed the three pence she had received for them to her aunt, who dropped them into the deep pocket of blue striped tick ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover

... tick in the up-stairs hall forty years ago—I remember—" Grandma stopped as if a sudden thought had struck her. She dropped an old faded lamp mat and a rag rug and came over to look at the face of what had been an old friend. Many ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds

... one, and backed him for four pounds. He had to push and elbow his way through a struggling crowd; immediately after the bet was made, Eyot's quotation was reduced by two points in response to signals tick-tacked from the inclosures. This, of course, argued a decided following for Dale's selection, and these eleventh hour movements in the turf market are illuminative. Before he got back to the car there was a mighty ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy

... the water. And their having to go the second time was only because we forgot to tell them to get some real lemons to put on the bar to show what the drink would be like when you got it. The man at the shop kindly gave us tick for the lemons, and we cashed up out ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit

... understand the allusions I had already heard to Rachel's being "dry," or Abigail's being as "full as a tick," or ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... he will give her "a feather bed and a cow," and feel that her claim upon him has been handsomely met. The gift of a feather bed is rather interesting, too, when you consider that it is the daughter who has raised the geese, plucked them, and made the bed-tick. But "father" gives it to her just the same. The son, for a corresponding term of ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung

... as if she had been disordering it with her own hands; but I saw that she was young, and of a fair complexion. Peggotty had been crying. So had little Em'ly. Not a word was spoken when we first went in; and the Dutch clock by the dresser seemed, in the silence, to tick twice as loud ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... his pocket, and having left not many in the pockets of his friends whom he might command, had purchased (on tick doubtless) the whole and sole Editorship, Proprietorship, with all the rights and titles (such as they were worth) of the Albion, from one Lovell; of whom we know nothing, save that he had stood in the pillory for a libel on the Prince of Wales. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... menace offered to the cotton growers of the Southern States by the advance of the boll weevil. The Department is doing all it can to organize the farmers in the threatened districts, just as it has been doing all it can to organize them in aid of its work to eradicate the cattle fever tick in the South. The Department can and will cooperate with all such associations, and it must have their help if its own work is to be done in ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... double its fists up and try to swallow them alternately, and cross its feet and play with its toes. In fact, it was exactly like any of the thousand-and-one babies that are born into the world at every tick of ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... "I've Irish blood in me, old chappie," said he, "and that means a natural taste for amateur conspiracy and general devilment. But don't let's stay jawing here any longer. We're both due for a good jaunt ashore, and there's a bran-new tick here to guarantee us every mortal thing (bar one) which we want. And for that one, which is almost always a ready-money commodity, it will do us good to wait till we've tapped ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

... Maru left Yokohama for Kobe at schedule time on the tick of the watch, as she had done from Seattle. All Japanese steamers appear to be moved with the promptness of a railway train. On reaching Kobe we transferred to the Yamaguchi Maru which sailed the following morning, to shorten ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King

... think," said Miss Cullen, "that I am a bit more curious than most people, but it has nearly made me frantic to have you tick away on that little machine and hear it tick back, and not understand ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... finely portrayed in it; she excels to admiration in deep tragedy. In Mrs. Beverly, in the play of the 'Gamesters' a few nights ago, she so arrested the attention of the house that you might hear your watch tick in your fob, and, at the close of the play, when she utters an hysteric laugh for joy that her husband was not a murderer, there were different ladies in the boxes who actually went into hysterics and were obliged to be carried out of the theatre. This I think ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse

... that matter, and it isn't you who run the risk. The observer is not there to drop bombs, in most cases, but to watch, watch, watch. A motor standing by the roadside, a body of men about some work, extra traffic along a road—and a red tick goes down on a map; that is all. You go away. But next day, or sometimes much sooner, that red tick comes up for shelling as part of the normal day's routine of ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean

... home filled with vague alarms. Although on the next day she discovered, through an inquiry made by the town marshal, on what adventure the boys had gone, she could not quiet herself. All through the night she lay awake hearing the clock tick and telling herself that Seth, like his father, would come to a sudden and violent end. So determined was she that the boy should this time feel the weight of her wrath that, although she would not allow the marshal to interfere with his adventure, she got out a pencil ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson

... of the three other men, with a wonderful distinctness; and also the tick of my watch upon the table seemed to sound as loud and as slow as the tick of an old grandfather's clock. Someway I knew that none of the others saw what I ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson

... will investigate how a child's voice, speaking from Boston to Omaha, can vibrate more than a million pounds of copper wire; and he will invent a finer system of time to fit the telephone, which can do as many different things in a second as a man can do in a day, transmitting with every tick of the clock from twenty-five to eighty thousand vibrations. He will deal with the various vibrations of nerves and wires and wireless air, that are necessary in conveying thought between two separated minds. He will make clear how a thought, originating in the brain, ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson

... The door by which he had entered was at one side, on the other side was another, and between the two stood a sofa, the shape of which was plainly discernible under the sand. Over this was a clock, which had ticked its last tick. ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille

... "Isn't it Hell? I spent eight years trying to make that little mind of his tick properly. I wanted to know what was the right, proper, and logical way to bring up children. I had a theory, and I wanted to test it. And now I'll ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett

... was so high she had to climb on a chair to get in. She heard Maria's heavy feet go shuffling down the stairs. A door banged. Then it was so still she could hear the clock tick in the next room. ...
— The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows Johnston

... tick's ez dear'z the deuce, But it wun't leave no lastin' traces, Ez't would to make a sneakin' truce Without no moral specie-basis: Ef green-backs ain't nut jest the cheese, I guess ther' 's evils thet's extremer,— Fer ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various

... "trams" for the boys, And thousands of clever mechanical toys,— Engines and carriages running on rails, Steamers and sailers that carry the mails; Flags of all nations, and ships for all seas— The Red Sea, the Black Sea, or what sea you please— That tick it by clockwork or puff it by steam, Or outsail the weather or go with the stream; Carriages drawn by a couple of bays, 'Buses and hansoms, and waggons and drays, Coaches and curricles, rallis and gigs— All sorts of wheelers, ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... the boy been with it all that he nearly forgot about the watch. But when he remembered and the man let him take it in his rusty, brown fingers, that was the most wonderful moment of all. The tick, tick inside was a marvel, almost a thing uncanny to the boy, and when it was explained how the hands went round and round, telling the time of day, it surely seemed a thing beyond ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins

... thought of the lives in peril, and what might have been their fate Had I sprung to the points that evening a tenth of a tick too late; And a cold and ghastly shiver ran icily through my frame As I fancied the public clamor, the trial, and bitter shame. I could see the bloody wreckage—I could see the mangled slain— And the picture was seared for ever, blood-red, ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various

... the power to influence the whole Nucleus. No—we'll have to look a good deal farther than the Ids before we find the answer. I'm convinced of that, even though I'd like to find out exactly what makes them tick. Maybe next trip—" ...
— Cubs of the Wolf • Raymond F. Jones

... begin with the ones we can buy.... Mrs. Baker will have to wait for her rent for a time; I can't spare any for that.... I've a good mind, Thomas, to take a whole holiday; a long one. Chuck the envelopes and take to living like a lord, on tick. It's wonderful how far tick will carry you, if you try. Muffins for tea, you see, Thomas, only you can't have any. Well, what's the matter? Why shouldn't I have muffins for tea? You've got milk, ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay

... the Channel, which doesn't count, of course. And now that I've been thrown with so many people—all sorts of people—I realise how few I have known in my life, so far. If I had about twice as many fingers and toes as I have, I believe I might tick off every human being I've ever met as actual ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... minute, then made up his mind to go to a shopkeeper called Madame Tsitrinnikov to try and get it from her on tick: who knows? perhaps the woman would feel for them and let them have it. The jeune premier went off, and half an hour later returned with a bottle of brandy and some castor-oil. Shtchiptsov was sitting ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... qualification than martyrdom, I must draw upon his hoard of merit to acquit myself. You will at least get thus much by this charming manner of obliging me: I look upon myself as double obliged; and when it cost me so much to ask one favour, and I find myself in debt for two, I shall scarce run in tick for a third. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... little chip fur ter hole it, an' den jes res' tudder een 'gins de side er de nes'. Soon's eber he done dat, he crawlt out thu de crack mighty kyeerful, I tell yer, caze he wuz fyeared he mout er knock de stick down, an' git his own se'f cotch in de trap; so yer hyeard me, mum, he crawlt thu mighty tick'ler. ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle

... the doings of the sun upon the sky—and then there was pushing, and probing, and tossing, and pulling, and thumping, and kneading of knuckles, till the rib of every feather was aching; and then (like dough before the fire) every well-belabored tick was left to yeast itself a while. Winnie, the maid, was as strong as a post, and wore them all out in bed-making. Carroway heard the beginning of this noise, but none of it meddled at all with his comfort; he lay back nicely in a happy fit of chair, ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... my dear," he went on, seeing that his wife still looked pale, "they could burn down a tick or two, on a windy night in winter and, to satisfy you, I will have an extra sharp lookout kept in that direction, and have a watchdog ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty

... longer so silvery a gleam, nor contrast so strongly with the blackness of the shadows among which they fall. They are paler, now; the shadows look gray, not black. The boisterous wind is hushed. What is the hour? Ah! the watch has at last ceased to tick; for the Judge's forgetful fingers neglected to wind it up, as usual, at ten o'clock, being half an hour or so before his ordinary bedtime—and it has run down, for the first time in five years. But the great world-clock of Time still keeps its beat. The dreary night—for, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various

... of summer, doggedly superior to the call of Colorado or the Adirondacks or the Thousand Islands, he comes and departs by the tick of the clock. Base-ball fans find him adamant; turf devotees, marble; golf enthusiasts, cold as ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... Huckster. I spoke to him, but found myself in error. He said his name wasn't Huckster, of Bumville, but Bogle, of Bogle's Cross Roads. I apologized, left him, and at the corner whom should I see but Tommy, the Tick. Incidentally I mentioned to Tommy the curious circumstance of my having mistaken Mr. Bogle, of Bogle's Cross Roads, for ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg

... the kitchen 'd look by night, With just a clock, — But they could gag the tick, And mice won't bark; And so the walls ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson

... is the cheaper, titles or money in these days," said King. "I understand one can get a most acceptable duke for three or four millions, a nice marquis or count for half as much, and a Sir on tick." He eyed the Count speculatively. "Of course a prince of the royal blood ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... was a pause, and we could hear our watches tick, and our hearts beat. Dear George asked me in a whisper if he should say anything more, but I thought not. The pause became painful, and then Tom Coram, prince of merchants, rose. Had any calculation been made of the probable cost of the experiment ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale

... place them in corners, closet-shelves, bureau drawers, boxes, etc., and the cockroaches, ants, or other insects will soon disappear. It is also well to place some between the mattresses, and around the bed. It is also a splendid thing for brushing off that terrible little insect, the seed tick. ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs

... gaming rooks, that never stick To play for hundreds upon tick, 'Cause, if they chance to lose at play, They've not one halfpenny to pay; And, if they win a hundred pound, Gain, ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... platform men in shirt-sleeves prowled backwards and forwards—as the tigers do about feeding time in the Zoo. They, too, had super-hearing. From little funnels that looked like electric light shades they caught the tick of the messages, and chalked the figures of the latest prices as they altered with the dealing on the floor upon a huge blackboard that made the ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton

... the floors and the house had a slight smell of carbolic. The tick-tick of sewing machines on the other side of the screen mingled with the deadened sound of the clapping of hands in the ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine

... clock, so tall that it was almost impossible to get it into the house. The old man was extremely proud of it, and found it very good company. He would lie awake nights to hear it tick. One night the clock got out of order, and began ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher

... cried, "April! The crocuses are out and the violets are almost here—and, what is more important, your day of trial gets closer with every tick of the clock. Come outdoors and take a ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield

... critical moment that an extraordinary incident occurred. Oscar saw but little chance; still, as intimated, he was determined to make a desperate fight even in face of the odds against him, and there he sat revolving the matter in his mind when suddenly there sounded a little tick-tick like the tick-tick of a telegraph machine. The men did not notice the tick-tick, it was so low and sounded like the involuntary cracking that is sometimes heard from dried furniture when a fire is first ignited in a room. To our hero, ...
— Cad Metti, The Female Detective Strategist - Dudie Dunne Again in the Field • Harlan Page Halsey

... Committy in the great State uv Noo Gersey, that ez soon ez our candidate for Governor wuz dooly elected, I shood hev the position uv Dorekeeper to the House uv the Lord (wich in this State means the Capital, & wich is certainly better than dwellin in the tents uv wicked grosery keepers, on tick, ez I do), and a joodishus exhibition uv this promise hed prokoored for me unlimited facilities for borrerin, wich I ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby

... they began the delightful era of the second cigar, and sank a little deeper down, surely, into serenity and peace. Occasional coals dropping into the fender with a hot tick, tick, chirrupped a lullaby to the four happy companions. And the men learnt a fine silence from the ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... steps. In the larger rooms some sixty or seventy men were huddled together. Around the sides bunks were framed on pieces of scantling that extended from floor to ceiling, arranged in three tiers, so that a floor space of six feet by four sufficed for six men. My cotton tick was never refilled, and after doing service for many months it became flat and hard. Our quarters and accommodations were such as the Yankees thought good enough for rebels and traitors, but in summer we were uncomfortably and unhealthily crowded, and in winter we suffered from the cold, ...
— Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway

... the light, and the words of the telegram, like the low tick of a clock, again sounded through the ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith

... were kept going by sheer inertness. Not unhappy, not fretful, but long,—long, long. It seems to me, as I look back to the life in the motherless Islington house, as I resumed it in that slow eighth year of my life, that time had ceased to move. There was a whole age between one tick of the eight-day clock in the hall, and the next tick. When the milkman went his rounds in our grey street, with his eldritch scream over the top of each set of area railings, it seemed as though he would never disappear again. There was no past and no ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse

... dika fingro. Thump frapegi, bategi. Thunder tondri. Thunderstorm fulmotondro. Thunderstruck fulmofrapa. Thursday jxauxdo. [Error in book: jauxdo] Thus tiel, tiamaniere. Thwart malhelpi. Thy cia, via. Thyme timiano. Tibia tibio. Tick bateti, frapeti. Ticket bileto. Tickle tikli. Ticklish tiklosentema. Tidal marmova. Tide, incoming alfluo. Tide, receding forfluo. Tidings sciigo. Tidiness malnegligxeco. Tidy malnegligxa. Tie ligi. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... Scotland Lightship before the Agnes begins that monotonous heave-and-drop stunt. Course, it ain't any motion worth mentionin', but somehow it sort of surprises you to find that it keeps up so constant. It's up and down, up and down, steady as the tick of a clock; and every time you glance over the rail or through a porthole you see it's quite a ride you take. I didn't mind goin' up a bit; it's that blamed feelin' of bein' let down ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford

... other hindrances and annoyances, delayed the usual morning work until far into the afternoon—something that was always particularly displeasing to methodical Aunt Polly, who ordered her own life, preferably, by the tick ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter

... there an ostrich egg tops the conical roofs of the huts, from Damerghou to this place. I showed the people my watch, and put it to their ears that they might hear it tick, tick; and I may observe a singularity on this. The people did not say, "Oh! how it ticks!" but "Kal, kal!" so that kal, kal, is the sound which we express by tick, tick, in ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson

... his business, therefore, has its hour or quarter hour in the daily program when its big problems are considered and settled on the tick of the clock. This schedule is flexible, since no two days bring from any division of production, distribution, or financing the same demands upon the owner's attention. Yet each keeps its place and comes invariably under his eye—through reports ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott

... accompanied them to the station, each boy carrying some part of the luggage. Thus divided, the equipment did not seem large; but when it was all assembled, it appeared entirely adequate. There was a good waterproof tent, a strong tick to be stuffed with leaves, blankets, a coil of rope, additional cooking utensils, and generous supplies of food. Charley took a light, high-powered rifle and his revolver with plenty of ammunition. Their comrades piled this luggage ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss

... become a very Palace of Slumber, and as you waited your turn in one of the wooden arm-chairs beside the wall, what with the quiet of the hour, and the low drone of Jeff's conversation, the buzzing of the flies against the window pane and the measured tick of the clock above the mirror, your head sank dreaming on your breast, and the Mariposa Newspacket rustled unheeded on the floor. It makes one drowsy ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock

... hipsohopus would pass, shaking the ground with its tread; but so implicit was the travellers' trust in the vigilance of their mechanical and tireless watch, that they slept on as calmly and unconcernedly as though they had been in their beds at home, while the tick was as constant and regular as a sentry's march. The wires of course did not protect them from creatures having wings, and they ran some risk of a visitation from the blood-sucking bats. The far-away volcanoes occasionally sent up sheets of flame, which in the distance were ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor

... he did it on purpose to make me value it more, and be more careful. Doesn't it seem odd he shouldn't see that I can't pay the subscriptions a few shillings short or a few days late? One must find the money somehow, and then one has to pay for that, and then you're short, and go on tick, and it runs up, and then they dun you, and you're cleaned out, and there ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing



Words linked to "Tick" :   run up, go over, control, see to it, retick, horse tick, black-legged tick, ensure, tictac, look into, check up on, assure, stitch, ixodid, mattress, ticktock, ascertain, see, sound, go, check into, argasid, tocktact, receipt, check out, suss out, Acarina, sew, sew together, check over, acarine, order Acarina, verify, insure



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