Forms: 5 tek, tekk, 6–7 ticke, 7 tyck, 6– tick. [Not known a. 1440, the vb. (TICK v.1) appearing a century later. Parallels to sb. and vb. appear in Du. tik a pat, touch, tick, tikken to pat, tick, LG. tikk a touch, also a moment, instant, with ticken or tikken vb., Norw. tikke to touch lightly, also MHG. zic ‘a light touch or push,’ and zicken vb. These may indicate a common OTeut. source, or they may be of later onomatopœic formation, the expression in ‘vocal gesture’ of the act or sound in question.]
1. A light but distinct touch; a light quick stroke; a pat, a tap. Obs. exc. dial.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 487/2. Tek, or lytylle towche [K. tekk or lytyl strock], tactulus.
1580. Sidney, Lett., 18 Oct., in Collins, Lett. (1746), I. 285. When you play at Weapons … play out your Play lustilie, for indeed Tickes and Daliances are nothing in earnest.
1621. S. Ward, Life of Faith, 84. The least ticke befalls the not, without the ouer-ruling eye and hand … of a wise God.
1625. Lisle, Du Bartas, Noe, 13. He makes us only afraid With fingers tyck.
1674. N. Fairfax, Bulk & Selv., 96. If the forestroke give us but a little tick, the backstroke will be sure to give him a knocker.
a. 1825. Forby, Voc. E. Anglia, Tick, a very gentle touch, by way of hint, or as a token of endearment.
b. A children’s game in which the object is to overtake and touch; = TIG sb. 2.
1622. Drayton, Poly-olb., xxx. 144. The Mountaine Nymphs … doe giue each other chase, At Hood-winke, Barley-breake, at Tick, or Prison-base.
1884. Black, Jud. Shaks., iii. The children playing tick round the grave-stones.
2. A quick light dry sound, distinct but not loud, as that caused by the sudden impact of a small hard body upon a hard surface; esp. the sound produced by the alternate check and release of the train in the escapement of a watch or clock; also the similar sound made by the death-watch beetle.
Also (repeated) adverbially or interjectionally, as an imitation of this sound: see also TICK-TICK.
1680. Aubrey, Lives (1898), I. 28. He [Thomas Allen] happened to leave his watch in the chamber windowe … The maydes … hearing a thing in a case cry Tick, Tick, Tick, presently concluded that that was his Devill.
1702. Ray, Rem. (1780), 324. The leisurely and constant Tick of the Death-Watch.
1861. Walsall Free Press, 7 Dec. By a simple arrangement of ticks and intervals … the clerk was enabled to copy the [telegraphic] messages with the utmost rapidity.
1871. Tyndall, Fragm. Sc. (1879), I. xxii. 496. Ellicott set one clock going by the ticks of another.
1878. Mrs. Mary J. Holmes, Daisy Thornton & Jessie Graham, x. 297. The light of a young life flickered and faded with each tick of the tall old clock, which in the kitchen without could be distinctly heard measuring off the time.
1910. Nation, 8 Jan., 604/2. With just a ‘tick’ of his [a robin’s] alarm note.
b. A beat of the heart or of the pulse.
1823. Byron, Juan, X. xxxix. Her physician … found the tick Of his fierce pulse betoken a condition which augured of the dead.
1855. Browning, An Epistle, 194 Something, a word, a tick o’ the blood within Admonishes.
3. A small dot or dash (often formed by two small strokes at an acute angle), made with a pen or pencil, to draw attention to something or to mark a name, figure, etc., in a list as having been noted or checked. In quot. 1860 used in plural for inverted commas.
1844. Fraser’s Mag., XXX. 88/1. Neat pencil ticks indicated favourite passages.
1860. Mrs. Carlyle, Lett. (1883), III. 48. To … interlard his own note with single words or whole lines of yours ‘in ticks.’
1863. Reader, 28 Nov., 638. A tick at the beginning and end of it … shows of what extent the passage is to be.
1865. Dickens, Mut. Fr., III. i. Those lots that I’d mark with my pencil—there’s a tick there, and a tick there.
1898. Sir E. Hamilton, in Daily News, 8 Nov., 6/1. Whether the copy was entered in a large letter book, or made on a separate sheet, depended on his having made one ‘tick’ or two ‘ticks’ at the bottom of the first page.
b. A small spot or speck of color on the skin or coat of an animal.
1873. D. Maclagan, in Mod. Scot. Poets (1881), III. 181. The ticks upon his gawsy side Show him a new-rin saumon.
4. transf. (from 2). The time between two ticks of the clock; a moment, second, instant. colloq.
1879. Browning, Ned Bratts, 193. Waste no tick of moment more.
1904. Jerome, Tommy & Co. (ed. Tauchn.), 236. It’s all right. Can explain in two ticks.
1907. Phyllis Dare, Fr. School to Stage, v. At eight o’clock to the tick, the day’s regular lesson’s began.
1909. E. W. Hornung, Mr. Justice Raffles, i. 6. If I had broken the rules one of the prize humbugs laid down for me I should have been spotted in a tick by a spy, and bowled out myself for a spy and a humbug rolled into one.
