Ticking

Quick meaning: Ticking is a noun meaning A strong cotton or linen fabric used to cover pillows and mattresses.

Meaning

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

More Meanings

1. A sound of something that ticks. (For example, the second hand on a clock face.)
2. An illusional style of dance where one moves his or her body to the "tic" of the music creating a strobe or animated effect.
3. present participle and gerund of tick
4. 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.

Example Sentences

a ticking time bomb

Were they indeed the tickings of a hundred clocks — the fine low inward breathings of Time's children!

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.

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).

Word Forms

• tickings

Synonyms for ticking

Depending on context, synonyms include tick.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include canvas, crossing, painting, press, clicking, tick-tock.

Related Dictionary Tools