ticking

English

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈtɪkɪŋ/
  • Rhymes: -ɪkɪŋ

Etymology 1

tick (sheet, cover) + -ing (material, collection).

Noun

ticking (plural tickings)

  1. A strong cotton or linen fabric used to cover pillows and mattresses.
    • 1897, Rudyard Kipling, “chapter 1”, in Captains Courageous:
      Harvey saw with disgust that there were no sheets on his bed-place. He was lying on a piece of dingy ticking full of lumps and nubbles.
Translations

Noun

ticking (plural tickings)

  1. A sound of something ticking.
    • 1842, Laman Blanchard, “The Frolics of Time”, in George Cruikshank's Omnibus:
      Were they indeed the tickings of a hundred clocks — the fine low inward breathings of Time's children!
    • 2018 May, Angela Leighton, Hearing Things: The Work of Sound in Literature, Harvard University Press, page 237:
      The combination of “monotony” and “variety,” which keeps the writer in a trance-like state between sleep and wake, is then characterized by the figure of a ticking watch: “If certain sensitive persons listen persistently to the ticking of a watch [...] they fall into the hypnotic trance; and rhythm is but the ticking of a watch made softer, that one must needs listen, and various, that one may not be swept beyond memory or grow weary of listening” (1961: 159).
  2. An illusional style of dance where one moves his or her body to the "tic" of the music creating a strobe or animated effect.

Verb

ticking

  1. present participle and gerund of tick
    a ticking time bomb
    • 2018 May, Angela Leighton, Hearing Things: The Work of Sound in Literature, Harvard University Press, page 237:
      The combination of “monotony” and “variety,” which keeps the writer in a trance-like state between sleep and wake, is then characterized by the figure of a ticking watch: “If certain sensitive persons listen persistently to the ticking of a watch [...] they fall into the hypnotic trance; and rhythm is but the ticking of a watch made softer, that one must needs listen, and various, that one may not be swept beyond memory or grow weary of listening” (1961: 159).
Derived terms

Etymology 3

tick (tick mark) + -ing (having the property).

Noun

ticking (plural tickings)

  1. A marking that occurs on some horses. It involves white flecks of hair at the flank, and white hairs at the base of the tail, called a skunk tail or rabicano. Sometimes referred to as birdcatcher ticks.

See also

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