tick-tock

• tick tock, ticktock

Onomatopoeia based on tick.

tick-tock

1. The sound of a ticking analog clock.
2. (colloquial) A warning of some fateful impending event.
   • 2015, Teresa D. Patterson, Wolf in the Pulpit, page 104:

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

tick-tock (third-person singular simple present tick-tocks, present participle tick-tocking, simple past and past participle tick-tocked)

1. To make continual clicking sounds like those of an analog clock; to tick.
   • 2016 June 17, Filip Bondy, “Colombia Slumps to Victory Over Peru in Copa América Quarterfinal”, in The New York Times‎:

     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. When marching, to swing arms and legs on the same side at the same time.
   • 2019 February 20, Hollie Geraghty, “PC PLOD: Met cops mocked for 'worst march ever' in hilarious 'Monty Python meets Dad's Army' video”, in The Sun (United Kingdom)‎:

     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.

tick-tock (plural tick-tocks)

1. The sound of a ticking clock.
   • 2023 March 22, Ben West, “This 835-Year-Old English Manor Needs Some Modern Love”, in The New York Times‎:

     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. (journalism) A step-by-step account of an event or timeline.
   • 2020: "Sure Looks Like the Trump Administration Used Some Bad, High School–Level Math to Justify 'Reopening' the Economy" by Jordan Weissmann on Slate

     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.