Dictionary

tick on en · VERB

Meanings

1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see tick, on.; to continue ticking.
   • None of that should affect the beat, or pulse itself, which ticks on regardless. 2008, Ian Assersohn, First Time Bars - A Choral Singer's Handbook, page 6:
   • The sun sets and the clock ticks on. 2017, Bryanna Bond, The Color Black, page 23:
   • He shuts off the engine, which ticks on mechanically, cooling down. 2003, Tom Wilkins, The Demise of The Color War Captain, page 121:
2. (figuratively, of time, qualifier:or units of time) To elapse;
   • As time ticked on, with 15 minutes remaining, Billy Gilmour side-footed at Gestsson after breaking into the box from a rare flash of incision. 2021 October 12, Jamie Lyall, “Faroe Islands 0-1 Scotland”, in BBC Sport:
   • Slowly the moments ticked on; once he murmured the name of the girl he loved. 1912, Kate Everest, The Searchlight on the Throne: Reminiscences of an Ex-ambassador, page 132:
   • Seconds ticked on. 1958, Ashes of Conflict, page 2:
   • Or we think of an absolute time which ticks on regardless of events, agents, causes and effects. 2013, Roy Abraham Varghese, The Missing Link, page 113:
   • But the night ticked on and we soon missed Monk's cleaning. 2011, Lee Goldberg, Mr. Monk on the Couch:
   • The day ticked on and it was soon time to head back. 2020, Richard Georgiou, One Man on a Bike, page 212:
3. (broadly, figuratively) To continue; to keep occurring.
   • In that web, my father's pacemaker and our broken human lives ticked on, not in a universe governed by a god whose rules were written on tablets and interpreted by male priests who'd never spent a day changing adult diapers or listening to the moans of a Nancy Cruzan. 2014, Katy Butler, Knocking on Heaven's Door: The Path to a Better Way of Death, page 202:
   • With the dumb, inchoate misery of a small child's inability to understand its situation or express bereavement, the relentless question ticked on, and on. 2015, Claire Collard, Footpaths on the Sea, page 82:
   • The banner flutters and love of the group / stifles the petty unmanly doubt / which ticks on, a liberal superstition. 2012, Charles Kraszewski, Irresolute Heresiarch: Catholicism, Gnosticism and Paganism in the Poetry of Czesław Miłosz, page 68:

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