Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A steady ticking sound, as of a clock.
  • noun A prankster's device for tapping on a door or window from a distance.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A pulsating sound like that made by a clock or watch; a ticking.
  • noun Specifically, the sound of the beating of the heart.
  • noun A device employed in playing certain practical jokes, consisting of a small weight so fastened that one at a distance can, by pulling a string, cause the weight to tap against the house or window.
  • noun A complicated kind of backgammon, played both with men and with pegs. Compare trick-track, and see the third quotation below.
  • With a sound resembling the beating of a watch.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A noise like that made by a clock or a watch.
  • noun A kind of backgammon played both with men and pegs; tricktrack.
  • adverb With a ticking noise, like that of a watch.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • interjection Dated form of tick tock.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun system of signalling by hand signs used by bookmakers at racetracks
  • verb make a sound like a clock or a timer

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Imitative.]

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Examples

  • The ticktack sound of ice bouncing off ice filled the world, and the temperature plummeted even lower.

    Kings of Colorado David E. Hilton 2011

  • The ticktack sound of ice bouncing off ice filled the world, and the temperature plummeted even lower.

    Kings of Colorado David E. Hilton 2011

  • We have all of our people here, we have Dana Bash, Suzanne Malveaux, who will be giving us the back-and-forth and the ticktack about what happened last night.

    CNN Transcript Sep 27, 2008 2008

  • And Thursday you wrap it up is that a fair ticktack, as they say?

    CNN Transcript Aug 31, 2008 2008

  • To small virtues would they fain lure and laud me; to the ticktack of small happiness would they fain persuade my foot.

    Thus spake Zarathustra; A book for all and none 2001

  • Verily, to such measure and ticktack, it liketh neither to dance nor to stand still.

    Thus spake Zarathustra; A book for all and none 2001

  • The engineer was leaning on one arm, with his head out of the cab window, and Hemenway nodded as he passed and hurried into the ticket office, where the ticktack of a conversation by telegraph was soon under way.

    The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories Franklin K. [Editor] Mathiews

  • Verily, to such measure and ticktack, it liketh neither to dance nor to stand still.

    Thus Spake Zarathustra 1885

  • To small virtues would they fain lure and laud me; to the ticktack of small happiness would they fain persuade my foot.

    Thus Spake Zarathustra 1885

  • To small virtues would they fain lure and laud me; to the ticktack of small happiness would they fain persuade my foot.

    Thus Spake Zarathustra A book for all and none Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche 1872

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