ticking meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

ticking

noun

/ˈtɪkɪŋ/

Etymology From tick (“sheet, cover”) + -ing (“material, collection”).

A strong cotton or linen fabric used to cover pillows and mattresses.

Harvey saw with disgust that there were no sheets on his bed-place. He was lying on a piece of dingy ticking full of lumps and nubbles.1897, Rudyard Kipling, “chapter 1”, in Captains Courageous:

ticking

noun

A sound of something that ticks. (For example, the second hand on a clock face.)

Were they indeed the tickings of a hundred clocks — the fine low inward breathings of Time's children!1842, Laman Blanchard, “The Frolics of Time”, in George Cruikshank's Omnibus:
The combination of “monotony” and “variety,” which keeps the writer in a trance-like state between sleep and wake, is then characterized by the figure of a ticking watch: “If certain sensitive persons listen persistently to the ticking of a watch [...] they fall into the hypnotic trance; and rhythm is but the ticking of a watch made softer, that one must needs listen, and various, that one may not be swept beyond memory or grow weary of listening” (1961: 159).2018 May, Angela Leighton, Hearing Things: The Work of Sound in Literature, Harvard University Press, page 237:

An illusional style of dance where one moves his or her body to the "tic" of the music creating a strobe or animated effect.

ticking

noun

Etymology From tick (“tick mark”) + -ing (“having the property”).

A marking that occurs on some horses, involving white flecks of hair at the flank, and white hairs at the base of the tail, called a skunk tail or rabicano, sometimes referred to as birdcatcher ticks.

Related terms: Ticking in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.