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Tick   Listen
noun
Tick  n.  
1.
A quick, audible beat, as of a clock.
2.
Any small mark intended to direct attention to something, or to serve as a check.
3.
(Zool.) The whinchat; so called from its note. (Prov. Eng.)
Death tick. (Zool.) See Deathwatch.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Tick" Quotes from Famous Books



... of hair. Having got up a sort of drunken simper, Sponge opened the drawing-room door, expecting to find smiling ladies in a blaze of light. All, however, was darkness, save the expiring embers in the grate. The tick, tick, tick, ticking of the clocks sounded ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... apart in his corner; his long claw-like fingers interlaced on his knee; his dark vigilant eyes fixed searchingly now on one face, now on another. The dripping rustle of the rain among the leaves, and the clear, ceaseless tick of the clock on the mantel-piece, made the minute of silence which followed the settling of the persons present in their places indescribably oppressive. It was a relief to every one ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... much tick to any of the fellows, Mother Brown," he began. "You know it isn't always easy ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty

... book you handed me, to plight our troth," with ire said she, "you bought from Charlie here on tick? Skidoo! A deadbeat makes me sick! I'll never marry any jay who can't dig ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason

... with other idlers, playing marbles all day in the West Park, and going home at night to tell his landlady how he had been seeking for a job. I believe this kind of existence was not unpleasant to Alick himself, and he might have long continued to enjoy idleness and a life on tick; but he had a comrade, let us call him Brown, who grew restive. This fellow was continually threatening to slip his cable for the States, and at last, one Wednesday, Glasgow was left widowed of her Brown. Some months afterwards, Alick met another ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson

... like the slow tick of a very quiet clock, measured and persistent. He could not make ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... Then, as the sound died away in the distance, it seemed stiller than ever. Willie tried to sleep; but he couldn't. He kept listening; and after all he was listening to nothing; nothing but that awful clock, that would keep up such a tick-tick, tick-tick, tick-tick. The curtains were down, and Willie didn't dare to raise them, or to peep out. He could feel how dark it ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston

... creeds, For youth on folly bent, A steady tick for worthy deeds, And moments wisely spent; No warning note of emphasis, No whisper of advice, To ruined rake or flippant miss, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various

... on in the wilderness. He did not mind being alone. He was never afraid. With his trusty rifle, Tick-Licker, over his shoulder, he explored much of Kentucky. He was happy because the wilderness was wide and he felt free. After a few months, Squire came back. Again the ...
— Daniel Boone - Taming the Wilds • Katharine E. Wilkie

... stood out clearly to his uncaring sight; the snap of the fire, the tick of the clock smote like separate reports upon his hearing; and while he lived he was to recall, when he smelled burning pine, this tense moment. Presently he rose unsteadily and reached out for his coat and hat like a ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock

... my sorrow I find Her heart is as hard as a brick, To my passion forever unkind, Though of love I am full as a tick. ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks

... here, you see, to the tick," he said noisily, kissing the forehead his goddaughter pressed forward to him. Then, turning to the waiter, "You can serve without delay," he said. ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt

... portraits, blending together, in the dim light of a late October afternoon, to form shadowy backgrounds for autumnal reverie, or for silent, solitary listening—listening to the tales told by the soughing wind outside, to the whisper of embers in the fireplace, the slow somber tick of the tall clock telling of ages past and passing, the ghostly murmur of the old house talking softly ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... All the real Java and Mocha in the world is snapped up, long before it filters down to the average level. Back in the Dark Ages of my childhood, I knew experimentally real Java—we got it by the sack-full straight from New Orleans—and called the Rio coffee used by many of our neighbors "Seed tick coffee," imagining its flavor was like the smell of those pests. Nowadays, Rio coffee has pretty well the whole world for its parish. Wherefore the best one can do, is to get it sound, well roasted, and as fresh as may be. Much ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams

... Tick, tick, tick, tick, went the little French clock on the mantelpiece. Suddenly it struck her that it was a long while that she had been left alone in this room. She glanced at the clock; it really was almost an hour. All her latent homesickness returned with fresh force. Her eyes filled with ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge

... appeared over the edge of the table and gave a trembling jerk toward the pistol-butt. Then it fell back into his lap. He gasped. A drop of sweat ran down his temple into his gray beard. Again the only sounds were the tick of the cabin clock, the wash of the seas outside and the hoarse breathing of the cornered man. At length he moved with a sort of shudder, whispered the name of his Maker and seized the butt ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader

... also exceptionally keen. He could hear a watch tick in the next room, and perceive very high sounds to which ordinary human ears are deaf (this was found out later); and when we played blind-man's-buff on a rainy day, he could, blindfolded, tell every boy he caught hold of—not by feeling ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... an elderly gentleman from Bumville, whom I thought I recognized as a Mr. Huckster. I spoke to him, but found myself in error. He said his name wasn't Huckster, of Bumville, but Bogle, of Bogle's Cross Roads. I apologized, left him, and at the corner whom should I see but Tommy, the Tick. Incidentally I mentioned to Tommy the curious circumstance of my having mistaken Mr. Bogle, of Bogle's Cross Roads, for Mr. ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg

... the open air, Drawes up his wings with tactick care; Whilst th' expert falcon swift doth climbe In subtle mazes serpentine; And to advantage closely twin'd She gets the upper sky and wind, Where she dissembles to invade, And lies a pol'tick ambuscade. ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace

... Austin are down in the office. Fraulein is after them again. Last night, when the trunks were brought up, Mary and Peggy waited until the lights were out and then they fixed up a tick-tack. They hid in the trunks and worked the thing for almost an hour. It was awfully spooky—nearly scared Fraulein to death. She's just furious at ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs

... se, cute, biz, bug-house, swell, opry, rep, photo, cinch, corker, in cahoot, pants, fess up, exam, bike, incog, zoo, secondhanded, getable, outclassed, gents, mucker, galoot, dub, up against it, on tick, to rattle, in hock, busted on the bum, to watch ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood

... pocket. There was something round and hard there—a lozenge? No, a shilling, which had remained there ever since I changed my winter clothes in the spring. Now at that time we were reduced to anchovy paste for breakfast, and our bare rations for tea. Money was spent, tick was scarce, stores were exhausted. Faithful to a friendship which has all things in common. I went out to Dell's and bought a pot of apricot jam for tea, the time for which had arrived. As ill-luck would have it, both you fellows were detained at something or another—French, ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... sundry other hindrances and annoyances, delayed the usual morning work until far into the afternoon—something that was always particularly displeasing to methodical Aunt Polly, who ordered her own life, preferably, by the tick ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter

... was complete. The fish did not half like it at first; but habit is every thing, and when he shewed me his tank, they were swimming about as merry as a shoal of dace; he fed them with fennel chopped small, and black-pepper corns. 'Come, doctor,' says I, 'I trust no man upon tick; if I don't taste, I won't believe my own eyes, though I can believe my tongue.'" (We looked at each other.) "'That you shall do in a minute,' says he; so he whipped one of them out with a landing net; and when I ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... with merry tick-tack of the brush and comb, and after the last stroke on their shining limbs, threw his tools in the box and went ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland

... the light that managed to creep in showed a gloomy black mantelpiece, with vases of immortelles, and somber walnut chairs with crocheted tidies that made little white patches here and there in the dusk. Everything smelled of camphor, and from one of the corners came the slow, solemn tick of ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice

... fountain of his mind were clear, that he might see an ass in it! I had rather be a tick in a sheep, than such a ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... altogether to the anatomy of that organ. As yet there is no instrument for the ear comparable to the ophthalmoscope. The acoumeter is largely used by aurists and can be obtained from the optician. This instrument has an advantage over the whisper or watch tests in that its tick is uniform. ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen

... in the house of the commandant, an insect, well known in the southern country by the name Tampan, bit my foot. It is a kind of tick, and chooses by preference the parts between the fingers or toes for inflicting its bite. It is seen from the size of a pin's head to that of a pea, and is common in all the native huts in this country. It sucks the blood until quite full, and is then of a dark blue color, and its skin ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... anguish does not sting; nor pleasure pall: Woe-hurricanes beat ever at the gate, 530 Yet all is still within and desolate. Beset with plainful gusts, within ye hear No sound so loud as when on curtain'd bier The death-watch tick is stifled. Enter none Who strive therefore: on the sudden it is won. Just when the sufferer begins to burn, Then it is free to him; and from an urn, Still fed by melting ice, he takes a draught— Young Semele such richness never quaft ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats

... back to Oakdale. The entire Wireless Patrol accompanied them to the station, each boy carrying some part of the luggage. Thus divided, the equipment did not seem large; but when it was all assembled, it appeared entirely adequate. There was a good waterproof tent, a strong tick to be stuffed with leaves, blankets, a coil of rope, additional cooking utensils, and generous supplies of food. Charley took a light, high-powered rifle and his revolver with plenty of ammunition. Their comrades piled this luggage in a corner of the car, then hustled back to ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss

... one answered; she heard the tick of the clock; it was the only sound. 'Mother,' she repeated, and she dared to look up, but the bed was empty. There was no mother. Lady Annabel was not in the room. Following an irresistible impulse, Venetia knelt by the side of her mother's bed and prayed. She addressed, in audible ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli

... up to the top flat, where the chimes were played, I had to pass through the vault in which the great pendulum was slowly swinging in its ghostly-like tick-tack, tick-tack; while the great ancient clock was keeping time with its sudden and startling movement. The whole scene was almost as uncanny as the witches' cell underneath. There was also a wild rumbling thumping sound overhead. I soon discovered the cause of this, ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth

... tick, went the little French clock on the mantelpiece. Suddenly it struck her that it was a long while that she had been left alone in this room. She glanced at the clock; it really was almost an hour. All her latent homesickness returned with fresh force. Her eyes filled with sudden tears; in another ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge

... cheeks, frightened, angry, very miserable. She had stirred Jon up so fearfully, yet nothing definite was promised or arranged! But the more uncertain and hazardous the future, the more "the will to have" worked its tentacles into the flesh of her heart—like some burrowing tick! ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... the cheaper, titles or money in these days," said King. "I understand one can get a most acceptable duke for three or four millions, a nice marquis or count for half as much, and a Sir on tick." He eyed the Count speculatively. "Of course a prince of the royal ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... accent. Whether or no there be any such emphasis as a thing in itself, the listening ear supplies it to meet a need. When we attend to a clock ticking, the tick-tock, tick-tock, however even it may sound at first, soon resolves itself into a rhythm with the accent on either the tick or the tock. So does the beat of an engine, or the hum of a railway train, merge itself into some definite sound picture, with the accent for relief that the ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt

... informed them that the use of strong language was always left to the Officer Commanding. This particular morning some choice words had to be used to get the transport moving. They moved, however, to the tick of the clock and Sergeant-Major Grant, with a grin on his face, suggested that from now on there would be no more swearing in the ranks, as everybody was quite satisfied with the Commanding ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie

... she had to climb on a chair to get in. She heard Maria's heavy feet go shuffling down the stairs. A door banged. Then it was so still she could hear the clock tick in ...
— The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows Johnston

... by the advice of the surgeon. I passed my time as I best could. Stretched on my bed, I either abandoned myself to reflection, or listened to the voices of the birds in the neighbouring garden. Sometimes, as I lay awake at night, I would endeavour to catch the tick of a clock, which methought sounded from some distant part of ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... a taxi was heard to arrive at the other side of the ferry, and the ferryman's voice was heard shouting: "All right, all right, I'll be there in half a tick." ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson

... a cake, make a cake, my good man, Make it of treacle and cornmeal and bran, Tick it and pick it and mark it with B, And eat it for ...
— War Rhymes • Abner Cosens

... Faba. THE BEAN.—Several kinds of Beans are cultivated by farmers. The principal are the Horse-Bean or Tick-Bean; the Early Mazagan; and the Long-pods. Beans grow best in stiff clayey soils, and in such they are the most convenient crop. The season for planting is either the winter or spring month, as the weather affords opportunity. They are either drilled, broad-cast sown, or ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury

... countenance, "I sees how the knot's tied. Ye know, my functions are turned t' most everything; and it makes a body see through a thing just as straight as—. Pest on't! Ye see, it's mighty likely property,—don't strike such every day. That gal 'll bring a big tick in ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... little fur slippers thudded on the hard wood floor. Tick-Tick-Tick Lily's toe-nails clicked along beside him. It sounded ...
— Fairy Prince and Other Stories • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... her hair fell loose and scattered, as if she had been disordering it with her own hands; but I saw that she was young, and of a fair complexion. Peggotty had been crying. So had little Em'ly. Not a word was spoken when we first went in; and the Dutch clock by the dresser seemed, in the silence, to tick twice as loud as usual. Em'ly ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... butler had passed. Stover's glance was riveted on it, trying to remember whether the American Constitution prohibited head masters from the brutal English practice of caning and birching; and,—listening to the lagging tick of the mantel clock, he solemnly vowed to lead that upright, impeccable life that would keep him ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson

... Across the forward bulkhead was a bookshelf crammed to overflowing with volumes of all sizes, many upside down and some coverless. Below this were a pipe-rack, an aneroid, and a clock with a hearty tick. All the woodwork was painted white, and to a less jaundiced eye than mine the interior might have had an enticing look of snugness. Some Kodak prints were nailed roughly on the after bulkhead, and just over the doorway was the photograph ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers

... silence one might have heard a watch tick, Doble leaned forward, his body rigid, danger written large in his burning ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine

... up above has died down, when with the approach of darkness the rattling of the chains and the groaning of the windlasses has ceased, when only the slow step of the deck-watch finds an echo—then it can be heard. Inside the box you can hear a gentle but steady tick, tick, tick. The clock-work is wound up and set to the exact second. Tick, tick, tick it goes. When the ship is far out at sea and the passengers are asleep and the watch calls out: "Lights are burning. All's well!" then the works will have run down, the spring will stop ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff

... and her aunt entered the cottage. It had but one room, and that was wretched enough. Many of the windows were broken, and pieces of shingle were stuck over the holes in the glass. In one corner stood a miserable bedstead, with a ragged coverlet partially spread over a dirty bed tick filled with leaves. There was only one chair, and that was a broken rocker, on which the unhappy mistress of the cottage was seated. But there were two or three rough stools, made of pieces of pine slab, standing beside the rickety table. Pointing to these stools, Mrs. Button, without quitting ...
— Aunt Amy - or, How Minnie Brown learned to be a Sunbeam • Francis Forrester

... chapter" and to "compose herself for the night," the housekeeper sat late rocking alone in her rooms, while the hollow tick of the hall clock sounded doubly lonely in the cheerless night. The modern castle's walls were proof against the wildest rain and even the blows of a catapult, and so the dashing storm never even stirred the heavy leaded diamonded panes. "Thanks be to God, ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage

... that her claim upon him has been handsomely met. The gift of a feather bed is rather interesting, too, when you consider that it is the daughter who has raised the geese, plucked them, and made the bed-tick. But "father" gives it to her just the same. The son, for a corresponding term ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung

... cut out for the undertakin' business, by rights. He took things hard, he did. Every tick of the clock was a solemn moment for him, and me gettin' a stamp on crooked was a case that called for a heart to heart talk. He used to show me the books he was keepin', and the writin' was as reg'lar as if it'd been done on ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford

... awful silence. Day after day, year after year, not a sound. I have stood in that street at mid-day and heard a watch tick in my pocket. Think of it, Mr. de Windt. I myself arrived here only a few months ago, but even I shall soon have to get away for a change, or——" and he tapped his ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt

... The watch hands pointed to the second which had been given for the assault to begin, and instantly, to the tick, the guns lifted and made a curtain of fire round the Chateau of Hooge, beyond the Menin road, ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... was down in the flat again, because he was physically tired, and ready for sleep. However, long before dawn he was awake once more, and watching the small, dark, ticking thing which was the clock he had formerly hated. Now of a morning it did not tick fast enough to suit him! When the light crept in, up he got, brushed his teeth and his uniform, took his bath and his exercises, dressed, and had a few minutes of outdoors across the window sill, where he re-read his letter, and remembered to be glad that ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates

... whispered, picking out carefully the trails of four pairs of footsteps which had passed to where they stood, evidently coming to an end. "Yes, sah; dose niggah foots. Carry Massa Allen. All 'tick down ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn

... fru de clouds, an' sent him blessed rays down inter our hearts. We started jess like two young saplin's you's seed a growin' side by side in de woods. At fust we seemed way 'part, fur de brambles, an' de tick bushes, an' de ugly forns—dem war our bad ways—war atween us; but love, like de sun, shone down on us, and we grow'd. We grow'd till our heads got above de bushes; till dis little branch an' dat little branch—dem war our holy feelin's—put out toward one anoder, an' we come ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... were perfectly motionless. All who had watches simultaneously drew them from their pockets. The motion of each was suspended; so intense, in turn, was the hush of the breathless crowd, that you could have heard a single tick, but there was ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett

... sound! The grey-headed woodpecker tapping the hollow tree! Blind and dumb might well be envied now. See! that thing rests on two line-tubs, full of tow-lines. A most malicious wag, that fellow. Rat-tat! So man's seconds tick! Oh! how immaterial are all materials! What things real are there, but imponderable thoughts? Here now's the very dreaded symbol of grim death, by a mere hap, made the expressive sign of the help and hope ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... and stanchness of the hounds, and the admirable view that has been afforded them of their peculiar style of hunting. At this interesting period, a "regular swell" from Melton Mowbray, unknown to everyone except his tailor, to whom he owes a long tick, makes his appearance and affords abundance of merriment for our sportsmen. He is just turned out of the hands of his valet, and presents the very beau-ideal of his caste—"quite the lady," in fact. His hat is stuck ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees

... bureau drawers, boxes, etc., and the cockroaches, ants, or other insects will soon disappear. It is also well to place some between the mattresses, and around the bed. It is also a splendid thing for brushing off that terrible little insect, the seed tick. ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs

... rendered significant. Was a dog heard to howl and moan during the night, with his head in the direction of the house where the patient lay; was there heard in the silent watches of the night in the room occupied by the sick person, a tick, ticking as of a watch about the bed or furniture, these were sure signs of approaching death, and adult patients hearing these omens, often made sure that their end was near. Many pious people also improved the circumstance, pointing out that these omens were evidence ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier

... up and down the floor of her home filled with vague alarms. Although on the next day she discovered, through an inquiry made by the town marshal, on what adventure the boys had gone, she could not quiet herself. All through the night she lay awake hearing the clock tick and telling herself that Seth, like his father, would come to a sudden and violent end. So determined was she that the boy should this time feel the weight of her wrath that, although she would not allow the marshal to interfere with his adventure, she got out a pencil ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson

... the admiral would plump himself down with a great rattling of scabbard to await the infrequent tick of the ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry

... I'll take it for myself. For all my life have I been used to that, And I know nothing better than at night On soft dry wood to lay my weary head, And so to dream, half waking, half asleep, To count the passing hours by the birds That waken slowly, softly, one by one, Each singing in his turn. Then tick, tick, tick! Now it is two. Tock, tock, and one must stretch! Kiwitt, kiwitt! The sun is blinking now, And now its eyes are open. Chanticleer Bids all arise, lest they ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... can be tested by finding the distance at which the various members of the class can hear a watch-tick. The teacher can plan an experiment using whispering instead of the watch-tick. (See the author's ...
— The Science of Human Nature - A Psychology for Beginners • William Henry Pyle

... got bad about twenty years ago, caused I think by a cold in the head. When in bed I can hear the tick of a watch with the left ear but the other is almost stone deaf. I am not much at a loss in ordinary conversation, but in trying to hear people speak I lose much of what is said. Although I have no real pain, my head is rarely clear, feeling full and congested. I have now and again a slight sensation ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various

... of the young lawyer would not function. His will was paralyzed. Yet every sense was amazingly alert. He did not miss a tick of the watch. Every ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine

... alone; an' if anybody speaks to me about it arterwards, they'll wish they hadn't. I was all by myself in the house. I set down in my clock-room, about three in the arternoon, an' there I set. I didn't git no supper. I couldn't. I set there an' heard the clock tick. Byme-by it struck seven, an' that waked me up. I thought I'd gone crazy. The figgers on the wall-paper provoked me most to death; an' that red-an'-white tidy I made, the winter I was laid up, seemed to be talkin' out loud. I got ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown

... life, And the future a haze of gold! Oh, merry was I that winter night, And gleeful our little one's din, And tender the grace of my darling's face As we watched the new year in. But a voice—a spectre's, that mocked at love— Came out of the yonder hall; "Tick-tock, tick-tock!" 't was the solemn clock That ruefully croaked to all. Yet what knew we of the griefs to be In the year we longed to greet? Love—love was the theme of the sweet, sweet dream I ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field

... is asked on all sides of us to-day. And the modern recrudescence of pessimism has along with it, as one of the main thoughts which cut the nerves of effort, doubt of, and disbelief in, a future. It is because the very little opens out into the immeasurably great, and the passing moments tick us onwards into an unpassing eternity, that the moments are worth living through, and the fleeting insignificances of earth's existence become solemn and majestic as ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... clock, tick it never so slowly, must bring round the hour when she may go down to the river to meet ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown

... the lives in peril, and what might have been their fate Had I sprung to the points that evening a tenth of a tick too late; And a cold and ghastly shiver ran icily through my frame As I fancied the public clamor, the trial, and bitter shame. I could see the bloody wreckage—I could see the mangled slain— And the picture was seared for ever, blood-red, ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various

... and the sun a little colder? Had not the moon crumbled a little? And had not the eternal warmth, unperceived save of a few, drawn a little nearer—the clock that measures the eternal day ticked one tick more to the hour when the Son of Man will come? But the greed and the fawning did go on unchanged, save it were for the worse, in the shop of Turnbull and Marston, seasoned only with the heavenly salt ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald

... Husband, first despair and then rejoice! Dear wicked Husband, waste no tick of moment more, Be saved like me, bald trunk! There's greenness yet at core, Sap under slough! ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke

... coaxed sullen mothers and dissatisfied girls into Poultry and Tomato Clubs; and was full of homely advice upon such living subjects as the spraying of fruit trees, and how to save them from blight and scale-insects, and how to get rid of flies, and cut-worms, and to fight the cattle-tick, which is our curse; and the preservation of birds, concerning which he was rabid. His liking for birds began with Miss Sally Ruth's pigeons and the friendly birds in our garden. And as he learned to know them his love for them grew. I have seen him daily visit a wren's nest without once alarming ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler

... home, of wife and children, of country, of glory. The whole record of memory was effaced. The world had passed away—not a vestige remained. Here in this confusion of timbers and boards is the sole universe. Here is immortality in time—each pain an everlasting life. The throbs tick off eternities. ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce

... electrified, resolved into piped hydrogen and oxygen. Like a tremendous clock ticking, the water, momentarily dammed back, was released in a torrent to the electrolysis vats. The hissing gases, under tremendous pressure, raised up the heavy-weighted tops of two expanding tanks. Another tick of this giant clock—the gases released, were merged again to water. The tops of the tanks lowered, each in turn, one coming down as the other went up—hundreds of tons of weight—their slow downward pull geared to scores of whirling wheels—the power shifted ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings

... be the intention of the Eternal, it is by no means certain that nature does not mean kindly by man. Perhaps the pain of the world is but the rough horseplay of great powers that mean but jest—and kill us in it: as though one played at 'tick' with ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne

... the pencil, and "Tick! Tick!" chirped the little clock, and then the boy looked up, his eyes ...
— Princess Polly's Gay Winter • Amy Brooks

... with his snuffers is prowling about And his shaky old fingers will soon snuff us out; There's a hint for us all in each pendulum tick, For we're low in the tallow and long ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... sorely sick, He slept, and dreamt that the clock's "tick, tick," Was one of the Fates, with a long sharp knife, Snicking off bits ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert

... faint streak of the dawn of June 7 the mines at Hill 60 and St. Yves were exploded. The sight was awe-inspiring, and the ground trembled as if in the throes of an agonizing palsy. On the tick of the appointed time our 'boys' went 'over the top.' It was for this experience that they had worked and waited. They advanced immediately behind the barrage so consistently sustained by the artillery, and in the face of a terrific fusilade of machine-gun fire which seemed to leap ...
— Over the Top With the Third Australian Division • G. P. Cuttriss

... politicians nowadays. The Front Trenches have about as much use for the Front Benches as a big-game hunter for mosquitoes. The bayonet professor indicates his row of dummies and says to his lads, "Just imagine they are Cabinet Ministers—go!" and in a clock-tick the heavens are raining shreds of sacking and particles of straw. The demon bomber fancies some prominent Parliamentarian is lurking in the opposite sap, grits his teeth, and gets an extra five yards ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various

... begins that monotonous heave-and-drop stunt. Course, it ain't any motion worth mentionin', but somehow it sort of surprises you to find that it keeps up so constant. It's up and down, up and down, steady as the tick of a clock; and every time you glance over the rail or through a porthole you see it's quite a ride you take. I didn't mind goin' up a bit; it's that blamed feelin' of ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford

... shoulders; his forehead was high; and glasses with horn bows Sat astride on his nose, with a look of wisdom supernal. Father of twenty children was he, and more than a hundred Children's children rode on his knee, and heard his great watch tick. Four long years in the times of the war had he languished a captive, Suffering much in an old French fort as the friend of the English. Now, though warier grown, without all guile or suspicion, Ripe in wisdom was he, but patient, and simple, and childlike. He was beloved by all, and ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck

... steamed and rocked on the stove; the room was full of savory odors. Mrs. Field set the tea-kettle back where it would not boil so hard. These little household duties had become to her almost as involuntary as the tick of her own pulses. No matter what hours of agony they told off, the pulses ticked; and in every stress of life she would set the tea-kettle back if it were necessary. Amanda stood in the door, trembling. All at once there was a swift ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... tick. It had a persistent, relentless, remorseless regularity. Tick, tick—tick, tick. Every moment it appeared to be louder and louder. His brow wrinkled and his head bent forward more deeply, while ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis

... opened up once more to those whom long-tick had gradually restricted to a Spartan diet of hard-tack and salt pork. What thoughts of home and the money that could be sent to loved ones far away, suffering, perhaps for lack of that very money—but ...
— The Twenty-fifth Regiment Connecticut Volunteers in the War of the Rebellion • George P. Bissell

... a sonnet. Ah, my Dear, Can clocks tick back to yesterday at noon? Can cracked and fallen leaves recall last June And leap up on the boughs, now stiff and sere? For your sake, I would go and seek the year, Faded beyond the purple ranks of ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell

... old Old Clock, thy grave tick tock I heard in my childhood days, In the solemn night, when the fire burned bright, And the lamp cast feeble rays; When grandmother close by the mantelpiece, Sat dozing or knitting, or carding fleece, Or watching the dying blaze; When mother was young and her beautiful ...
— The Loom of Life • Cotton Noe

... threaten a Station-master, and make him send a wire on tick, said my friend, but thatd mean inquiries for you and for me, and Ive got my hands full these days. Did you say you are travelling back along this line ...
— The Man Who Would Be King • Rudyard Kipling

... clock, and that only! Tick! Tick! Tick! Tick! That only! Why then had she felt it impossible to finish her sentence? The judge was looking at her; he had not moved; nor had an eyelash stirred, but the rest of that sentence had stuck in her throat, and she found herself ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green

... said Wildney, confidentially, "all serene; give us two bottles of beer—on tick, ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar

... Tom, look smart," he sang out in response. "Um big 'guana down by de stable; come quick an' bring 'tick an' ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... two are very conscious of being together, without so much as the tick of a clock to help them. The father clings to his cigar, sticks his knife into it, studies the leaf, tries crossing his legs another way. The son examines the pictures on the walls as if he had never seen them before, and is all the time edging ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie

... "I have not possessed a watch for a year, and I've only ninepence in my pocket. They give me tick here. Foolish Spargetti. Long may their ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim

... of the afternoon when even the most industrious of grammar-school pupils feels his zeal for learning grow less with every tick of the clock. Isabel and Phebe, however, were never remarkable for their zeal. In fact, their teachers had never been able to decide whether they were more bright or more lazy. Both characteristics were so well developed that ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray

... as long as any other. It is never perfectly white. Unbleached cotton is good for winter. It is poor economy to make narrow and short sheets, as children and domestics will always slip them off, and soil the bed-tick and bolster. They should be three yards long, and two and a half wide, so that they can be tucked in all around. All bed- linen should be marked and numbered, so that a bed can always be made properly, and all missing ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe

... us against sleeping here, the Chapar khaneh being infested with the Meana bug, a species of camel tick, which inflicts a poisonous and sometimes dangerous wound. It is only found in certain districts, and rarely met with south of Teheran. The virus has been known, in some cases, to bring on typhoid ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt

... the boys, And thousands of clever mechanical toys,— Engines and carriages running on rails, Steamers and sailers that carry the mails; Flags of all nations, and ships for all seas— The Red Sea, the Black Sea, or what sea you please— That tick it by clockwork or puff it by steam, Or outsail the weather or go with the stream; Carriages drawn by a couple of bays, 'Buses and hansoms, and waggons and drays, Coaches and curricles, rallis and gigs— All sorts of wheelers, with ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... vital and impressive that all her life Cynthia was to recall the setting of the scene. The whiteness of the sunlight streaming into the east windows, the deep red of the wall paper, the tick of the marble clock on the shelf, and the crackle of the cannel coal fire on the hearth. While she waited for the visitor she was unconsciously preparing for the part and the lines of what was to follow. By the time the slow, light ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock

... me under cover, 'n' he 'ands me somethin' wet (I've got a lick or two that leaves me feelin' pretty sick). "Lor love yeh, ole John Hop," sez I, "yiv buried me in debt." "Don't minton ut at all," he sez, 'n' eyes me arf-a-tick. 'N' back there in the trench I sits, 'n' trims ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson

... the determining power of mechanical measurement, though it is derived mainly by the movement of the earth around the sun and the turning of the earth on its axis. Mechanically we have derived the second as the unit. It is easy for us to think in hours or days or weeks, though it may be the seconds tick off unnoticed {59} and the years glide by unnoticed; but it is difficult to think in centuries—more difficult in millions of years. The little time that man has been on earth compared with the creation of the earth makes it difficult for us to estimate the time of creation. ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... don't shoot the fool!" suggests Bengal, as the old man, pleading with his pursuers, winds his body half round the tree. Tick! tick! went the cock of Romescos' rifle; he levelled it to his eye,—a sharp whistling report rung through the air, and the body of the old man, shot through the heart, lumbered to the earth, as a deadly shriek sounds high above the echoes over the distant landscape-"M'as'r in heaven take 'um and ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... of influences,—through the order and gravity and solemn monotone of life at home, with the unceasing tick-tack of the clock forever resounding through clean, empty-seeming rooms,—through the sea, ever shining, ever smiling, dimpling, soliciting, like a magical charger who comes saddled and bridled and offers to take you to fairyland,—through ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various

... sharply, hesitated, shrugged. "Wild things' lives are brief at best—fox or flying-tick, wet nests or mink, owl, hawk, weasel or man. But the death man deals is the most merciful. Besides," he added, laughing, "ours is ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... to the last, while the glittering hands of the clock were seen in the firelight, creeping swiftly over the dial, and its solemn tick measured off the awful minute on which Elizabeth had agreed with her own soul to go forth on her terrible errand, the wretched woman was compelled to pause in that dim chamber, worse than dead herself, to comfort ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens

... next day. The little Croesuses first cry, because they haven't received more, and then fight over what they have; then they eat too much French candy, and get sick and cross, and the whole house is filled with their noise. So mamma has a headache; and papa longs for his office, and misses the tick-tick of the stock telegraph, and thinks what a confounded nuisance holidays are. That is what Christmas ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various

... matter of fact, the wilderness provides but few real perils, and in a hammock one is safely removed from these. One lies in a stratum above all damp and chill of the ground, beyond the reach of crawling tick and looping leech; and with an enveloping mosquitaro, or mosquito shirt, as the Venezuelans call it, one is fortified even in the worst haunts of these most ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe

... Suppose some one cuts the wire, a good clean cut; the two ends are apart: not a mile; not a yard; but distinctly apart. Could I telegraph on that wire? Of course not. Yet I might sit in my room and tick away by the hour wholly absorbed, and use most beautiful persuasive language—what is the good? The wire's cut. All my fine pleading goes into the ground, or the air. Now sin cuts the wire; it runs ...
— Quiet Talks on Prayer • S. D. (Samuel Dickey) Gordon

... spiteful spirits of Rawhide Peak, we slept with our usual profundity. Always, however, before bedtime we had to go through the little ceremony of removing the burs from our clothing, for every plant in this country seems to have a bur or a tick-seed, and we found a new one in every camp. Sometimes they were arrows or needles an inch long, sometimes triangles with sharp corners, sometimes little spiked balls, sometimes long bags with prongs. There was no end to their number ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various

... Jeremy was a tenth of a tick too late. The wretch was already helpless, and I dare say they broke his back as they leaned their combined weight on him and forced him backward and head-first through the window. Jeremy made a grab for his foot, but missed it, and a ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy

... Taylor responded. "I like that there proposition of yours so well that I'm going to take it; 'alf-sovereigns ain't so plentiful as all that comes to. If you just wait a moment, I'll be back in 'alf a tick. Then I'll tell you all ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White

... being, and that the world was, after all, a beautiful place. I think I had forgotten that there was such a person as Hardross Courage. The absorption of these days, when one has to remember, even with every tick of the clock, that the slightest carelessness, the slightest slip, means certain death—well, it lays hold of you. No wonder the lines are ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... come into teh offuss.' I kumpt in. Mr. Richlun voss tare, shtayndting yoost so—yoost so—py teh shtofe; undt, Toctor Tseweer, I yoost tell you te ectsectly troot, he toaldt in fife minudts—six minudts—seven minudts, udt may pe—undt shoadt me how effrapotty, high undt low, little undt pick, Tom, Tick, undt Harra, pin ropping me sindts more ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... end of it there was a gate by which wayfarers occasionally passed to shorten the way. There we sat without speaking a word, shivering with cold and fear, listening to the clock which went slowly, tick, tick, and occasionally starting as the door creaked on its hinges, or a half-burnt billet fell upon the hearth. My sister was ghastly white, as white as the garment which was drying before the fire. And now half an hour had elapsed and it was time to turn. . . . This we did, I and my sister, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... likewise purchased in Rhode Island a good stock of winter clothing for himself and Eric, a couple of thick blanket rugs, and two empty bed-tick covers—to be afterwards filled with the down they should procure from the sea birds. He bought, too, a strong lamp, with a supply of paraffin oil, and several dozen boxes of matches; so that he and Eric should not have ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson

... pathetically the want of the wild wood-notes of his native land! The groves of the Ohio that had just fallen beneath the axe's stroke 'live in his description,' and the turnips that he transplanted from Botley 'look green' in prose! How well at another time he describes the poor sheep that had got the tick and had bled down in the agonies of death! It is a portrait in the manner of Bewick, with the strength, the simplicity, and feeling of that great naturalist. What havoc be makes, when he pleases, of the curls of Dr. Parr's wig and of the Whig consistency of Mr. (Coleridge?)! ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... vivid story. "The Duke of Cumberland holds a Pharaoh Bank, deals standing the whole night; and last week, when the Duke of Devonshire sat down to play, he told him there were two rules; one was, 'not to let you punt more than ten guineas;' and the other, 'no tick.' Did you ever hear a more princely declaration? Derby lost the gold in his pocket, and the Prince of Wales lent him fifty guineas; on which the Duke of Cumberland expressed some surprise, and said he had never lent fifty pounds ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley

... I thought he was looking at the great clock, which was gaily painted in red and green. At the top sat a cuckoo, below hung the heavy leaden weights, and the pendulum with the polished disc of metal went to and fro, and said 'tick, tick.' But no, he was not looking at the clock, but at his mother's spinning wheel, that stood just underneath it. That was the boy's favourite piece of furniture, but he dared not touch it, for if he meddled with it he got a rap on the knuckles. ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... bridge. In a sombre corner on the first landing, stood a gruff old giant of a clock, with a preposterous coronet of three brass balls on his head; whom few had ever seen—none ever looked in the face—and who seemed to continue his heavy tick for no other reason than to warn heedless people from running into him accidentally. It had not been papered or painted, hadn't Todgers's, within the memory of man. It was very black, begrimed, and mouldy. And, at the top of the staircase, was an old, disjointed, rickety, ill-favoured skylight, ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... "All the time you ban in awful hurry, Captain Zim. Dis fog awful tick. Yas, we shall take her in if you say so—and maybe so pile her up on de rock. You don' min' ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough

... our wives will tick their Souls on Sin, Tis vain to make about their Ears a din, For that exasperates their will the more, And where in private may in publick Whore; So then the Scandal coming to all Ears, Each Neighbour will not only fling ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses from Men • Various

... recall, carried the mail that winter. 'Twas a thankless task: a matter of thirty miles to Jimmie Tick's Cove and thirty back again. Miles hard with peril and brutal effort—a way of sleet and slush, of toilsome paths, of a swirling mist of snow, of stinging, perverse winds or frosty calm, of lowering days and the haunted dark o' night—to ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan

... by a body plunged in the water, as the wavelets reach it in succession. But a finer motion is at the same time set up and propagated. If the head and ears be immersed in the water, as in an experiment of Franklin's, the tick of the drop is heard. Now, this sonorous impulse is propagated, not at the rate of a foot, but at the rate of 4,700 feet a second. In this case it is not the gravity but the elasticity of the water that comes into play. Every liquid particle ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... wrong across, And not along, this black thread through the blaze— "It should be" balked by "here it cannot be." And oft the man's soul springs into his face As if he saw again and heard again His sage that bade him "Rise" and he did rise. Something, a word, a tick o' the blood within Admonishes: then back he sinks at once To ashes, who was very fire before, In sedulous recurrence to his trade Whereby he earneth him the daily bread; And studiously the humbler for that pride, Professedly the faultier that he knows God's secret, while he ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps

... timepiece, timekeeper, horologe, horometer: clepsydra, isochronon; scarab, scarabee, beetle. Associated Words: horology, horography, horologiography., pendulum, strike, dial, tick. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... feel the cruelty of that inexorable clock in the stillness; for the minutes passed too quickly. How could it be else, when each one of them might have heralded a hope and did not; when each bequeathed its little legacy of despair? But was there need that each new clock-tick as it came should say, as the last had said: "Another second has gone of the little hour that is left; another inch of the space that parts us from the sentence that knows no respite or reprieve"? Was it not enough that the end must come, without the throb of ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... of them had been struck, and the last ringing beat had throbbed and swooned into a whisper, and died, one always felt that other strokes would follow. One looked for them, and waited for them, but they did not come. To-day nothing seemed to come but the regular, echoing, church-like tick-tock, and to-day there was no diversion of any kind; there was only ...
— A Melody in Silver • Keene Abbott

... there, they risked their lives all the same, like fine fellows as they were, to save the crew. They succeeded, but ruined their old boat. A subscription was raised, and prospered so, that a boat-builder built them a new one on tick, price L. 85; and the publicans said, "Drink, boys, drink; the subscription will cover all; it is up to L. 120 already." The subscription money was swallowed with the rest, and the ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... life of narrow means for the girl he loves; it hurls his own hopes in the mire, and makes the very thought of them a dishonour; it snatches from him the bright prospect of the career on which he has set his heart, the gate to which stood wide open but a moment earlier. And all this in the tick of a watch, in the space of time filled by one ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray

... remarkably fine face; the Grecian character is finely portrayed in it; she excels to admiration in deep tragedy. In Mrs. Beverly, in the play of the 'Gamesters' a few nights ago, she so arrested the attention of the house that you might hear your watch tick in your fob, and, at the close of the play, when she utters an hysteric laugh for joy that her husband was not a murderer, there were different ladies in the boxes who actually went into hysterics and were obliged to be carried out of the theatre. This I think is proof of good ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse

... he's got work lined up for him, work that's got to be done mostly in the Deathlands, and it's the sort of work the city squares can't help him with one bit, because they just don't understand us murderers and what makes us tick. We have to ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber

... celebration at Pepper hill, north of Verdun, where a battery of Rhode Island artillery rigged a twenty-foot rope to the lanyard of a .155 cannon, and every man in the company, from the captain to the cook, laid hold of it and waited. At the tick of eleven o'clock they gave that rope one mighty yank, all together, and the gun roared out the last shot of ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell



Words linked to "Tick" :   mark off, deer tick, tick-weed, insure, check off, sew, hard tick, tick-tack-toe, go over, American dog tick, argasid, see to it, retick, ticking, control, ticktack, tick trefoil, Indian tick fever, horse tick, Acarina, acarine, ticktock, sheep-tick, assure, up-tick, tocktact, mark, check up on, stitch, see, ticker, order Acarina



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