tick
verbVerb Forms
Idioms Phrasal Verbs| present simple I / you / we / they tick | |
| he / she / it ticks | |
| past simple ticked | |
| past participle ticked | |
| -ing form ticking |
- [intransitive]
(of a clock, etc. 钟表等 to make short, light, regular repeated sounds to mark time passing 发出滴答声；滴答地走时 In the silence we could hear the clock ticking. 寂静中，我们能听到钟表滴答作响。 a ticking bomb 滴答作响的定时炸弹 - tick away
While we waited the taxi's meter kept ticking away. 我们等候时，出租汽车的计程器一直在滴答滴答地走着。
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadverb- loudly
- relentlessly
- away
- …
- [transitive] (British English) (North American English check)tick something
to put a mark (✓) next to an item on a list, an answer, etc. 标记号；打上钩；打对号 Please tick the appropriate box. 请在适合的方框内打钩。 Tick ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to each question. 在每个问题的 “是” 或 “否” 旁打钩。 I've ticked the names of the people who have paid. 我在已付款者的姓名旁画了钩。
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadverb- simply
- mentally
- off
- …
Word Originverb Middle English (as a verb in the sense ‘pat, touch’): probably of Germanic origin and related to Dutch tik (noun), tikken (verb) ‘pat, touch’. The noun was recorded in late Middle English as ‘a light tap’; current senses date from the late 17th cent.
Idioms
the clock is ticking (down)
used to say that there's not much time left before something happens 滴答： 过去常说没有什么时间The clock is ticking down to midnight on New Year’s Eve. 新年前夕，时钟滴答滴答地指向午夜。 The clock is ticking for one mystery lottery winner who has less than 24 hours to claim a £64 million prize. 对于一名神秘彩票中奖者来说，时间不到24小时就能获得6400万英镑的奖金。
tick all the/somebody’s boxes
what makes somebody tick
