[f. TICK v.1 + -ER1.] Something that ticks. a. The pendulum or escapement of a clock or watch; also (slang) a watch (rarely, as in quot. 1910, a clock).
1828. [Moir], Mansie Wauch, xxv. (1849), 204. Went to and fro like the ticker of a clock.
1829. Maginn, in Mem. Vidocq, IV. App. 261. Then his ticker I set a-going, With his onions, chain, and key.
1838. Dickens, O. Twist, xviii. If you don’t take fogles and tickers … some other cove will.
1888. Rider Haggard, Col. Quaritch, xxviii. I’ve sold all my jewels down to my ticker.
1910. Contemp. Rev., July, 36. Secreting a copy of Keats behind the ticker.
b. A telegraphic recording instrument, a tape-machine; a stock-indicator.
1883. F. M. Crawford, Dr. Claudius (1892), 173. A couple of wheels that unwound … long strips of white paper … covered with unintelligible signs. ‘That is the ticker,’ said Barker; and he explained how every variation in the market was instantly transmitted to every place of business … in New York. Ibid., 174. ‘It [the ticker] is the pulse of New York,’ said Barker…. ‘It tells us everything. Nobody can live here without a ticker.’
1889. Pall Mall G., 22 Jan., 7/2. In New York … news agency ‘tickers,’ messenger calls, private as well as public telephones, burglar and fire alarms,… are to be found in all well appointed offices.
1896. Proc. N. Eng. Hist. Genealog. Soc., 158. With Edison in 1870 he [F. L. Pope] invented the one-wire printing telegraph or ‘ticker.’
1902. Munsey’s Mag., XXVI. 542/2. Stock and general news tickers … reporting bad news.
