tick
pronunciation
How to pronounce tick in British English:
UK [tɪk]
How to pronounce tick in American English:
US [tɪk]
-
- Noun:
- a metallic tapping sound
- any of two families of small parasitic arachnids with barbed proboscis; feed on blood of warm-blooded animals
- a mark indicating that something has been noted or completed etc.
- a light mattress
-
- Verb:
- make a clicking or ticking sound
- make a sound like a clock or a timer
- sew
- put a check mark on or next to
Word Origin
- tick
- tick: English now has no fewer than four distinct words tick in general use. The oldest, tick ‘mite’ [OE], comes from a prehistoric West Germanic *tik-, which may be related to Armenian tiz ‘bug’. Tick ‘sound of a clock, mark of correctness, etc’ [13] originally meant broadly ‘light touch, tap’; its modern uses are secondary and comparatively recent developments (‘sound of a clock’ appears to have evolved in the 16th century, and ‘mark of correctness’ did not emerge until the 19th century). Tickle [14] is probably a derivative. Tick ‘mattress case’ [15] was borrowed from Middle Dutch tēke, which went back via Latin thēca to Greek thékē ‘cover, case’.And tick ‘credit’ [17] (as in on tick) is short for ticket.=> tickle; ticket
- tick (n.1)
- parasitic blood-sucking arachnid animal, Old English ticia, from West Germanic *tik- (cognates: Middle Dutch teke, Dutch teek, Old High German zecho, German Zecke "tick"), of unknown origin, perhaps from PIE *deigh- "insect." French tique (mid-15c.), Italian zecca are Germanic loan-words.
- tick (n.2)
- mid-15c., "light touch or tap," probably from tick (v.) and cognate with Dutch tik, Middle High German zic, and perhaps echoic. Meaning "sound made by a clock" is probably first recorded 1540s; tick-tock as the sound of a clock is recorded from 1845.
- tick (v.)
- early 13c., "to touch or pat," perhaps from an Old English verb corresponding to tick (n.2), and perhaps ultimately echoic. Compare Old High German zeckon "to pluck," Dutch tikken "to pat," Norwegian tikke "touch lightly." Meaning "make a ticking sound" is from 1721. Related: Ticked; ticking. To tick (someone) off is from 1915, originally "to reprimand, scold." The verbal phrase tick off was in use in several senses at the time: as what a telegraph instrument does when it types out a message (1873), as what a clock does in marking the passage of time (1777), to enumerate on one's fingers (1899), and in accountancy, etc., "make a mark beside an item on a sheet with a pencil, etc.," often indicating a sale (by 1881, from tick (n.2) in sense "small mark or dot"). This last might be the direct source of the phrase, perhaps via World War I military bureaucratic sense of being marked off from a list as "dismissed" or "ineligible." Meaning "to annoy" is recorded by 1971.
- tick (n.3)
- "credit," 1640s, shortening of ticket (n.).
Example
- 1. Prompt removal of an attached tick will reduce the chance of infection .
- 2. It also meant watching the clock tick backwards .
- 3. The downgrade clock began to tick .
- 4. Reconnect with your family or friends and find out what makes them tick .
- 5. Not for me the dull conformists who tick the right boxes , but have no hinterland or zest for life .