tick-tock

interjection

1. 1

   The sound of the ticking of an analog clock.

2. 2

   Time is running out; a deadline is approaching.

   Near-synonym: clock is ticking

   You may be smart enough to elude the law for five years, but your time has run out. Tick tock, motherfucker.

3. 3

   Time is running out; a deadline is approaching. Expresses warning of some fateful, impending event.

verb

1. 1

   To make continual clicking sounds like those of an analog clock; to tick.

   And so as the clock tick-tocked along at MetLife Stadium on Friday night, the possibility grew into the probability that this frustrating, scoreless quarterfinal between Colombia and Peru would end up in one of those unfortunate, nearly random shootout results.

2. 2

   When marching, to swing arms and legs on the same side at the same time.

   Ex-military didn't pass up the chance to harshly criticise the mediocre stepping, noting their "tick-tocking" technique which is a term used in the army, describing moving arm and leg on the same side in the same direction while marching.

noun

1. 1

   The sound of a ticking clock.

   Stepping inside from the courtyard, there was silence except for the tick-tock of the antique grandfather clock in the great hall. The hulking cream-and-gray flagstones underfoot had been worn away from centuries of service.

2. 2

   A step-by-step account of an event or timeline.

   A few days ago, the Washington Post published a long, depressing ticktock of the Trump administration’s execrable attempts to control the coronavirus and “reopen” the country for business, beginning with a shocking but not exactly surprising anecdote about how the president’s economic advisers had abetted the president’s most destructive impulses.

Forms

plural

tick-tocks

past tense

tick-tocked

past participle

tick-tocked

present participle

tick-tocking

third person singular

tick-tocks