TICKING

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does ticking mean? 

• TICKING (noun)
  The noun TICKING has 2 senses:

1. a metallic tapping sound

2. a strong fabric used for mattress and pillow covers

  Familiarity information: TICKING used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• TICKING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A metallic tapping sound

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Synonyms:

tick; ticking

Context example:

he counted the ticks of the clock

Hypernyms ("ticking" is a kind of...):

sound (the sudden occurrence of an audible event)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "ticking"):

ticktock; tictac; tocktact (steady recurrent ticking sound as made by a clock)

Derivation:

tick (make a sound like a clock or a timer)

tick (make a clicking or ticking sound)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A strong fabric used for mattress and pillow covers

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("ticking" is a kind of...):

cloth; fabric; material; textile (artifact made by weaving or felting or knitting or crocheting natural or synthetic fibers)

Derivation:

tick (sew)

 Context examples 

Indeed, it seemed impossible for either of us to remain much longer in the house; the fall of coals in the kitchen grate, the very ticking of the clock, filled us with alarms.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

At length, the steady ticking of the undisturbed clock on the wall tormented me to that degree that I resolved to go to bed.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

There was an old clock ticking loudly somewhere in the passage, but otherwise everything was deadly still.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

They likened TOP2-DPCs to ticking time bombs for cells.

(DNA damage caused by cancer treatment reversed by ZATT protein, National Institutes of Health)

The coat comes in solid black, liver or red or parti-color combinations of white with black, liver or red markings or ticking.

(English Cocker Spaniel, NCI Thesaurus)

Researchers from the University's Sainsbury Laboratory decided to examine the clock across all the major organs of the plant to help us understand how plants coordinate their timing to keep the entire plant ticking in harmony.

(Plants can tell time even without a brain, University of Cambridge)

I had beaten hemp, which there grows wild, and made of it a sort of ticking; this I filled with the feathers of several birds I had taken with springes made of Yahoos’ hairs, and were excellent food.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

I can remember that a black clock was ticking loudly upon the mantelpiece, and that every now and then, amid the rumble of the hackney coaches, we could hear boisterous laughter from some inner chamber.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Also of hearing an old-fashioned clock ticking away on the chimney-piece, and trying to make it keep time to the jerking of my heart,—which it wouldn't.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I had leisure to think, before the kitchen fire, of pretty little Emily's dread of death—which, added to what Mr. Omer had told me, I took to be the cause of her being so unlike herself—and I had leisure, before Peggotty came down, even to think more leniently of the weakness of it: as I sat counting the ticking of the clock, and deepening my sense of the solemn hush around me.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)