Advertisement

View synonyms for tick

tick

1

[ tik ]

noun

  1. a slight, sharp, recurring click, tap, or beat, as of a clock.
  2. Chiefly British Informal. a moment or instant.
  3. a small dot, mark, check, or electronic signal, as used to mark off an item on a list, serve as a reminder, or call attention to something.
  4. Stock Exchange.
    1. a movement in the price of a stock, bond, or option.
    2. the smallest possible tick on a given exchange.
  5. Manège. a jumping fault consisting of a light touch of a fence with one or more feet.
  6. a small contrasting spot of color on the coat of a mammal or the feathers of a bird.


verb (used without object)

  1. to emit or produce a tick, like that of a clock.
  2. to pass as with ticks of a clock:

    The hours ticked by.

verb (used with object)

  1. to sound or announce by a tick or ticks:

    The clock ticked the minutes.

  2. to mark with a tick or ticks; check (usually followed by off ); to tick off the items on the memo.

verb phrase

  1. Slang.
    1. to make angry:

      His mistreatment of the animals really ticked me off.

    2. Chiefly British. to scold severely:

      The manager will tick you off if you make another mistake.

tick

2

[ tik ]

noun

  1. any of numerous bloodsucking arachnids of the order Acarina, including the families Ixodidae and Argasidae, somewhat larger than the related mites and having a barbed proboscis for attachment to the skin of warm-blooded vertebrates: some ticks, as the deer tick, are vectors of disease.

tick

3

[ tik ]

noun

  1. the cloth case of a mattress, pillow, etc., containing hair, feathers, or the like.

tick

4

[ tik ]

noun

  1. a score or account.

tick

1

/ tɪk /

noun

  1. the strong covering of a pillow, mattress, etc
  2. informal.
    short for ticking
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


tick

2

/ tɪk /

noun

  1. a recurrent metallic tapping or clicking sound, such as that made by a clock or watch
  2. informal.
    a moment or instant
  3. a mark ( ) or dash used to check off or indicate the correctness of something
  4. commerce the smallest increment of a price fluctuation in a commodity exchange. Tick size is usually 0.01% of the nominal value of the trading unit
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

verb

  1. to produce a recurrent tapping sound or indicate by such a sound

    the clock ticked the minutes away

  2. whentr, often foll by off to mark or check (something, such as a list) with a tick
  3. what makes someone tick informal.
    the basic drive or motivation of a person
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

tick

3

/ tɪk /

noun

  1. any of various small parasitic arachnids of the families Ixodidae ( hard ticks ) and Argasidae ( soft ticks ), typically living on the skin of warm-blooded animals and feeding on the blood and tissues of their hosts: order Acarina (mites and ticks) See also sheep tick acaroid
  2. any of certain other arachnids of the order Acarina
  3. any of certain insects of the dipterous family Hippoboscidae that are ectoparasitic on horses, cattle, sheep, etc, esp the sheep ked
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

tick

4

/ tɪk /

noun

  1. informal.
    account or credit (esp in the phrase on tick )
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

tick

/ tĭk /

  1. Any of numerous small, parasitic arachnids of the suborder Ixodida that feed on the blood of animals. Like their close relatives the mites and unlike spiders, ticks have no division between cephalothorax and abdomen. Ticks differ from mites by being generally larger and having a sensory pit at the end of their first pair of legs. Many ticks transmit febrile diseases, such as Rocky Mountain spotted fever and Lyme disease.


Discover More

Word History and Origins

Origin of tick1

First recorded in 1400–50; late Middle English tek “little touch”; akin to Dutch tik “a touch, pat,” Norwegian tikka “to touch or shove slightly”; tickle

Origin of tick2

First recorded before 900; Middle English teke, tyke, Old English ticia, perhaps spelling error for tiica (i.e. tīca ) or ticca; akin to Low German tieke, German Zecke

Origin of tick3

First recorded in 1425–75; late Middle English tikke, teke, tyke (cognate with Dutch tijk, German Zieche ), ultimately derived from Latin tēca, thēca, from Greek thḗkē “case”

Origin of tick4

First recorded in 1635–45; short for ticket
Discover More

Word History and Origins

Origin of tick1

C15: probably from Middle Dutch tīke; related to Old High German ziecha pillow cover, Latin tēca case, Greek thēkē

Origin of tick2

C13: from Low German tikk touch; related to Old High German zekōn to pluck, Norwegian tikke to touch

Origin of tick3

Old English ticca; related to Middle High German zeche tick, Middle Irish dega stag beetle

Origin of tick4

C17: shortened from ticket
Discover More

Idioms and Phrases

Idioms
  1. on tick, on credit or trust:

    We bought our telly on tick.

  2. what makes one tick, the motive or explanation of one's behavior:

    The biographer failed to show what made Herbert Hoover tick.

More idioms and phrases containing tick

In addition to the idiom beginning with tick , also see clock is ticking ; tight as a tick ; what makes one tick .
Discover More

Example Sentences

Most infected ticks that had Dae2, however, survived as long as uninfected ticks.

The ticks can carry the pathogen that causes deadly Rocky Mountain spotted fever.

It is unclear why the adult tropical ticks switched their preference at high temperature.

More than twice as many of the ticks moved toward the human at the hotter temperature compared with at room temperature.

Doctors sent their blood samples to the Centers for Disease Control, which discovered that both farmers had contracted a previously unknown virus from a tick bite.

She actually had never been to a Deer Tick show before, but she liked it a lot.

So we picked out the song (“Rhiannon,” click here for video), and Deer Tick learned it.

The Senate races in both states are tight as a tick, with no candidate hitting 50 percent in any of the polls.

Caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, the illness is transmitted by the bite of an infected tick.

Once content to find a X-Men Calendar or a signed drawing of The Tick, fans now expect—and get—a whole lot more.

“The sepoys have come in from Meerut,” he announced with the slow tick of the earliest form of apparatus.

“Seems more cheerful like,” observed the caretaker, as the steady tick-tack began to sound through the quiet room.

Some animals, like the rhino and the eland, have tick birds that sit upon their backs and eat the ticks.

Often, for a variety in the lessons, she had to go to the baker without money; then her master simply gave the order, ‘on tick!’

Davie used to say 'tick-tock' when he heard it, when he first learned to talk.

Advertisement

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement


Ticinotick bird