tick

• IPA^(key): /tɪk/

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• Rhymes: -ɪk
• Homophone: tic

A tick (Ixodes hexagonus)

From Middle English tyke, teke, from Old English ticia (“parasitic animal, tick”), from Proto-West Germanic *tīkō, compare Dutch teek, German Zecke.

tick (plural ticks)

1. A tiny woodland arachnid of the suborder Ixodida.

   Hypernyms: ectoparasite, arachnid

• tick on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Ixodida on Wikispecies.Wikispecies
• Category:Ixodida on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons

From Middle English tek (“light touch, tap”).

tick (plural 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. (computing) A jiffy (unit of time defined by basic timer frequency).
4. (colloquial) A short period of time, particularly a second.

   Synonym: sec

   I'll be back in a tick.

5. (video games) A periodic increment of damage or healing caused by an ongoing status effect.
6. (gaming) Each of the fixed time periods, in a tick-based game, in which players or characters may perform a set number of actions.
7. (Australia, New Zealand, British, Ireland) A mark (✓) made to indicate agreement, correctness or acknowledgement.

   Synonym: checkmark

   Indicate that you are willing to receive marketing material by putting a tick in the box

   • 2023 May 26, Natasha Harding, Alexandria Dale, “Kate Middleton just re-wore her Alexander McQueen baby pink trouser suit”, in Women's Health‎:

     Kate's choice to don her pink suit again now, at the height of the Barbiecore trend, shows the royal really does have her finger on the pulse. That, paired with her statement belt and the fact pearls are having a real fashion moment (courtesy of the Met Gala) is three big ticks from us.

8. (birdwatching) 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.
   • 1980, Bill Oddie, Bill Oddie's Little Black Bird Book, page 76:

     There are few birders who have not had stringy ticks on their lists at some stage.

   • 2005, Sean Dooley, The Big Twitch, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, page 41:

     A twitcher's list is very democratic. Each bird counts as one tick. There are no extra points for beauty or rarity. The humble sparrow counts just as much as a Wedge-tailed Eagle or a Paradise Parrot.

9. (ornithology) A whinchat (Saxicola rubetra).
10. A tap or light touch.
11. A slight speck.

tick (third-person singular simple present ticks, present participle ticking, simple past and past participle ticked)

1. To make a clicking noise similar to the movement of the hands in an analog clock.
   • 2021 January 13, Richard Clinnick, “HS2 reaches key milestones and gears up for a busy 2021”, in Rail, page 12:

     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.
3. (informal, intransitive) To work or operate, especially mechanically.

   He took the computer apart to see how it ticked.

   I wonder what makes her tick.

4. To strike gently; to pat.
   • 1550, Hugh Latimer, “Sermon XIV. Preached before King Edward the Sixth and His Most Honourable Council, in His Court at Westminster, in the Year 1550.”, in The Sermons of the Right Reverend Father in God, Master Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worcester. […], volume I, London: […] J. Scott, […], published 1758, →OCLC, page 274:

     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, […]

     The spelling has been modernized.

5. (birdwatching, transitive) To add (a bird) to a list of birds that have been seen (or heard).

From Middle English tike, probably from Middle Dutch, from Latin theca (“cover”).

tick (countable and uncountable, plural ticks)

1. (uncountable) Ticking.
2. A sheet that wraps around a mattress; the cover of a mattress, containing the filling.
   • 1997, Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain, London: Hodder and Stoughton, page 101:

     She had an old tick for mattress that she stuffed with dried moss.

• ticking

• ticking

Clipping of ticket.

tick (uncountable)

1. (UK, colloquial) Credit, trust.

   Synonyms: credit, trust

   • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 2, in The History of Pendennis. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:

     When he had no funds he went on tick. When he could get no credit he went without, and was almost as happy.

   • 1903, Samuel Butler, chapter 42, in The Way of All Flesh:

     Immediately he got any money he would pay his debt; if there was any over he would spend it; if there was not—and there seldom was—he would begin to go on tick again.

   • 1974, GB Edwards, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page, New York 2007, page 190:

     He paid his mother-in-law rent and, when the baker or the butcher or the grocer wouldn't let her have any more on tick, he paid the bills.

tick (third-person singular simple present ticks, present participle ticking, simple past and past participle ticked)

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

From Middle English tik-, tic-, tike-, tiken- (in compounds), an unassibilated form of Middle English tiche, tichen (“young goat”), from Old English tiċċen (“young goat; kid”), from Proto-West Germanic *tikkīn (“goatling”), diminutive of Proto-West Germanic *tigā (“goat”). Cognate with regional German Zicke (“nanny goat”), from Ziege (“goat; nanny goat”).

tick (plural ticks)

1. (obsolete, place names) A goat.

   Tickhill, Tickham, Ticknock, Tickenhall Drive, Tickenhill Manor, Tickenhurst

• Nowadays only found in place names. Fell out of common usage in the 13th century.

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tick

1. singular imperative of ticken

Deverbal from ticka.

tick n

1. tick (quiet but sharp sound)

• tick in Svenska Akademiens ordböcker

tick

1. Alternative form of titch
   • 1867, “DR. RUSSELL ON THE INHABITANTS AND DIALECT OF THE BARONY OF FORTH”, in APPENDIX, page 130:

     One of these maids was bringing to market a tick (a kid)

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

• Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 130