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Ticking   /tˈɪkɪŋ/   Listen
Ticking

noun
1.
A metallic tapping sound.  Synonym: tick.
2.
A strong fabric used for mattress and pillow covers.



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"Ticking" Quotes from Famous Books



... of all that has happened since, I still remember that vigil very distinctly: the black and silent observatory, the shadowed lantern throwing a feeble glow upon the floor in the corner, the steady ticking of the clockwork of the telescope, the little slit in the roof—an oblong profundity with the stardust streaked across it. Ogilvy moved about, invisible but audible. Looking through the telescope, one saw a circle ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells

... Bessie, and wrote out a long telegram. In a minute she returned to Jake and Dolly, and the sound of the ticking telegraph instrument filled the station with ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the March - Bessie King's Test of Friendship • Jane L. Stewart

... arose from within a ticking like the love-making of the grasshopper. The machine had begun, and a moving concatenation of three horses and the aforesaid long rickety machine was visible over the gate, a driver sitting upon one of the hauling horses, and an attendant on ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... like the ticking of a watch, made by a small insect. It is considered a sign of death, and ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen

... number one," continued Whiteside, ticking the item off on his fingers. "Item number two is Mr. Milburgh, an oleaginous gentleman who has been robbing the firm for years and has been living in style in the country on his ill-earned gains. From what he ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace

... ticking loudly, ponderously, as though determined to betray the flight of fickle time and impress upon the happy, careless ones that the end of all things is at hand. The roses knock their fragrant buds against the window-panes, calling attention to their ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown

... was intense valleyward. Boylan felt the need of thinking further and dashed into the headquarters' stairway. There were excited voices above, and he made haste to see. Kohlvihr was wild-eyed in the center of the upper room—the telegraph ticking nervously, half of his staff bending with extraordinary intensity over the birth of a certain message.... What they ...
— Red Fleece • Will Levington Comfort

... remains abnormally open, the sense of hearing, as far as external sounds are concerned, is by no means improved; on the contrary, it is impaired by the respiratory sounds being rendered more distinct. If a watch be placed within the mouth, but not allowed to touch the sides, the ticking is heard much less plainly than when held outside. In persons in whom from disease or a cold the eustachian tube is permanently or temporarily closed, the sense of hearing is injured; but this may be accounted for by mucus accumulating within the tube, and the consequent exclusion of air. We may ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin

... magnitude of each particular cause of a sensation in its relation with other similar causes. Thus, for example, we cannot see the stars in the daytime, though they shine as brightly then as at night. Again, we seldom notice the ticking of a clock in the daytime, though it may become almost painfully audible in the silence of the night. Yet again, the difference between an ounce weight and a two-ounce weight is clearly enough appreciable when we lift the two, but one cannot discriminate in the same ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... be placed where its ticking will not disturb the person whom it has to arouse in due course (some of the ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams

... this theory would demand a crowd of technical details, unintelligible to the general reader, and therefore inappropriate in this place. But let such an one take the trouble to listen for a moment to the ticking of a heart, seemingly so monotonous, simple, and easy to understand, and then reflect that the slight elements discoverable in this little sound, have been forced by human intellect into at least twenty different combinations, and afforded ground for as many theories, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various

... should have at least one little (rather flat) hair pillow, covered on one side with blue or pink silk, on the other with plain white over the ticking. The prettiest pillow cases I ever saw were made of broad hemmed pocket handkerchiefs. Two sewed neatly together round three edges, and on the fourth button holes for mother-of-pearl studs. The handkerchiefs ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery

... Faith's turn to be surprised then, for stepping into the tea-room to look at the clock, she found not only the clock but Mr. Linden,—the former ticking sundry minutes past teatime, the latter enjoying the sunset clouds and his own reflections, and (possibly) his book. Mrs. Derrick, favouring the atmosphere of the little wood fire, which had burnt itself out to coals and ashes, ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner

... a tense silence while they waited for Langham to speak. Moxlow heard the ticking of ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester

... believe it actually was—seemed to deaden the sound of his voice, but the silence, too, had become so oppressive that I welcomed his torrent and even dreaded the moment when it would stop. I heard, too, the gentle ticking of my watch. Each second uttered its voice and dropped away into a gulf, as if starting on a journey whence there was no return. Once a dog barked somewhere in the distance, probably on the Lower Farm; and once an owl hooted close outside and I could hear the swishing of its wings as it passed ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... was cut off as though her heart had been stopped, as when one thrusts in a finger and halts a clock. There was the same dead silence that closes in upon the cessation of the long-continued ticking—a silence as though the whole world paused a moment to listen. He limped across the room to her side. She saw that his hair was dishevelled, his coat torn, as though he had been in a struggle. Then his arms closed about her and she felt a great sense of safety, of relief, as though ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... the wretched little brute, holding on to him for bare life, with my arms and legs straight out in front of me. The gray wall and the blinding road rushed by me like a river—I scarcely knew what happened—I couldn't think of anything but the ticking of the clock that I was somehow trying to count, till there came the bang of a pistol over ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... down at the station two miles away; I had been on station duty so often. The rickety country station lit by one large lamp; the thirteen waiting V.A.D.'s; the long wooden table loaded with mugs of every size; kettles boiling; the white clock ticking on; that ...
— A Diary Without Dates • Enid Bagnold

... Stagholme laid him down to rest in the shadow of a big rock, strong in himself, strong in his faith. And as he slumbered, those who slumber not nor cease their toil by day or night sat with crooked backs over a little ticking, spitting, restless machine that spelt out his name across half the world. While the moon rose over the mountains, and looked placidly down upon this strange man lying there peacefully sleeping in a world of his own, two ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman

... upon the company at these words, the ticking of the clock under its classic pediment on the mantel was painfully audible, and had the effect of intimating that time now had its innings and eternity was altogether out of it. Several minutes seemed to pass before any one had the courage to ask ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells

... to and fro the recollections of the day turned and turned in her brain, ticking loudly, and she could see each event as distinctly as the figures on the dial of ...
— Celibates • George Moore

... that fancied sound from her father's room. She listened now, her head raised, and the two men, their eyes bleared but their noses sniffing as though they were dogs, listened also. There were certain sounds, clocks ticking, the bough scraping on the wall, a cart's echo on the frozen road, the maid singing far in the depths of the ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... yourself to defining the sounds you hear, and concentrating on a special one, as that of a passing tram, or a ticking watch. ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs

... herself as to what all this amounted to, she had to take counsel with her father. She took her letters in her hand and went downstairs. It was past eleven, and the clocks had come into their reign, the grandfather's clock in the hall ticking in competition with the small clock on the landing. Mr. Hilbery's study ran out behind the rest of the house, on the ground floor, and was a very silent, subterranean place, the sun in daytime casting a mere abstract of light through a skylight upon his books and the large table, with its ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf

... grouping of the sounds on subjective attitudes may readily be made to appear. When attention is turned keenly on the process its phases of rhythmical differentiation decline; when the accompaniment becomes mechanical they mount in value. When the observer tries to mark the ticking as accurately as possible, not only does the index of his motor reactions become more constant, but the sounds of the instrument likewise appear more uniform. The observers report also that at one and the same time they are aware of the regularity of the metronome ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various

... son made no reply. In the silence the ticking of the big clock seemed to fill their world. They were conscious of nothing else. It ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown

... was ticking. To Andy it sounded as loud as a timepiece in a tower. The rhythmic cadence seemed to fill the room. Somewhere off in the distance a bell ...
— Andy at Yale - The Great Quadrangle Mystery • Roy Eliot Stokes

... sitting at our two-legged table, writing up my carnet de vol. Suzanne, the maid of all work at the Bonne Rencontre, was sweeping a passageway along the center of the room, telling me, as she worked, about her family. She was ticking off the names of her brothers and sisters, when Drew put his ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall

... down in the flat again, because he was physically tired, and ready for sleep. However, long before dawn he was awake once more, and watching the small, dark, ticking thing which was the clock he had formerly hated. Now of a morning it did not tick fast enough to suit him! When the light crept in, up he got, brushed his teeth and his uniform, took his bath and his exercises, dressed, and had a few minutes of outdoors across the window sill, ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates

... Only the crackle of the fire, the roar of the wind, and the ticking of his watch bore him company. He strode to the window and looked down at the few dim lights that proclaimed the existence of Upper Asquewan Falls. Somewhere, down there, was the Commercial House. Somewhere the girl who had wept so bitterly in that gloomy little waiting-room. She was only three miles ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers

... side, bent over him. Lady Oldfield read from the blessed Book the parable of the Prodigal Son. She thought that Frank heard her, for there was on his face a look of mingled surprise, pleasure, and bewilderment. Then no one spoke for a while. Nothing was heard but the ticking of Lady Oldfield's watch, which stood in its case on the dressing-table. Again the poor mother opened the same precious Gospel of Saint Luke, and read out calmly and clearly the parable of the Pharisee and the ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson

... match the blue and white of the dining room and the girls set to work to tack on the outside covering and to cut out the covers of the small cushions that were to make the seat and back comfortable. The cushions themselves they had made from ticking filled with excelsior when they had calculated the number of high chairs ...
— Ethel Morton at Rose House • Mabell S. C. Smith

... night, Not a dead leaf dares to fall, And I only hear the death-watch Ticking, ticking in ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various

... packed; sixteen pounds of refuse cotton, (such as is sometimes sold very low at the factories,) and half the hair of an old matress, (which should be well picked;) measure the bedstead you wish it for, and allow to each breadth of the ticking, a quarter of a yard in length over; for a small matress less should be allowed, and the same in width, (as it takes up in making;) cut the side strips as deep as you wish the matress, fit the corners, cut ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea

... the table, a gesture that caused the shoulders of Packer to move in a visible shudder, and the company, all eyes fixed upon the face of the star, suddenly wore the look of people watching a mysterious sealed packet from which a muffled ticking is heard. The bellowing and the sawing and the ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington

... September the 11th were trained in Afghanistan's camps, and so were tens of thousands of others. Thousands of dangerous killers, schooled in the methods of murder, often supported by outlaw regimes, are now spread throughout the world like ticking time bombs, set to ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... helped Miss Morgan to put aside the problems of the night; she hummed an old war tune as she went about her work, but it did not lift the silence from the house. The rooms that a few days before had been vocal with life, were so dead that the clock ticking in the parlor might be heard in the kitchen. The canary's cheerful song echoed shrilly through the silent place. Miss Morgan said to him, "Dickey, Dickey, for gracious sake, keep still—you'll drive me wild." But her voice only increased the bird's vehemence, and the throbbing ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White

... voice no more. Then, suddenly startled at the thought of being alone, she looked hastily over her shoulder. The cottage was indeed empty of all visible life. It was soundless, too: there was not even a ticking clock or a flapping flame. The fire burned still and smouldering-wise; but it was all the company she had, and she turned again ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald

... so scared and uncertain a thing that he walked away from her and threw the sack of coal on the hearth. A small grate with broken bars hung loosely in the fireplace, a battered tin kettle tilted drunkenly near it. A mattress, from the holes in whose ticking straw bulged, lay on the floor in a corner, with some old sacks thrown over it. Glad had, without doubt, borrowed her shoulder covering from the collection. The garret was as cold as the grave, and almost as dark; the ...
— The Dawn of a To-morrow • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... in this painless way for two or three days, she observed him to be troubled by the ticking of his watch—a pompous gold watch that made as great a to-do about its going as if nothing else went but itself and Time. She suffered it to run down; but he was still uneasy, and showed that was not what he wanted. At length he roused himself to explain that he wanted money ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... sound? I declare, I'd think it was one of those death-watch beetles had got in here. Sounds like a big watch ticking. I can't ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton

... on and on, listening to the clock's muffled ticking. Not the ghost of a sound rose up from the great bed. Either she lay archly listening or slept a sleep serener than an infant's. And when, it seemed, we had been hours in hiding and were cramped, chilled, and half suffocated, we crept out on all fours, with ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors

... the walls, the books wiped and put into them; when our comfortable chairs were drawn about the fireplaces; when our tall clock with a shepherdess painted on the dial had found its place between the windows and was ticking comfortably—we felt that our dream of that first day was coming true, and that the reality was going to be even better ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine

... permit expired, he had to pay a fine that exceeded all he had gained by his journey, perhaps. I used to picture my uncle on his Russian travels, hurrying, hurrying to finish his business in the limited time; while a policeman marched behind him, ticking off the days and counting up the hours. That was a foolish fancy, but some of the things that were done in Russia ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... to the sharp ticking of the little machine. There was the double-hurry call. Then ...
— Ralph on the Engine - The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail • Allen Chapman

... Commanding), Lieutenant Halstead (Second-in-Command) who is Company Commander while Captain Andrews is on leave, Lieutenant Giffin (a Rossall boy who, with the traditional Rossall touch, tries to play the 'senior sub' part—always ticking one off and making personal remarks), Second-Lieutenant Allen, Second-Lieutenant Gratton, and myself. Gratton was a private in Gallipoli, and so is a decent sort. Allen is very orthodox and proper, ...
— At Ypres with Best-Dunkley • Thomas Hope Floyd

... in the wide hall that afternoon. The door was open, and outside the sunshine sifted through the vines as the wind kept them swinging softly to and fro; it was very still, and the ticking of the tall clock had a ...
— The Story of the Big Front Door • Mary Finley Leonard

... manner, too, is Hawthorne's long sarcastic address to Judge Pyncheon (in "The House of the Seven Gables"), as the judge sits dead in his chair, with his watch ticking in his hand. Occasionally a chance remark reminds one of Dickens; this for example: He is talking of large, black old books of divinity, and of their successors, tiny books, Elzevirs perhaps. "These little old volumes impressed me as if ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang

... would open, and a little platform would come out with a tree upon it. There was a beautiful little bird upon the tree, and when the clock had done striking, the bird would flap its wings and sing. Then the platform would slide back into its place, the door would shut, and the clock go on ticking quietly for ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various

... table in a corner kept up a monotonous ticking, to which the operator paid no attention. But it was a soothing sound to Prescott, and with the food and the heat and the restful atmosphere he began to feel sleepy. The lank youth said nothing, but watched his guest ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... night long after Miss Joliffe had left him, and the hands of the loud-ticking clock on the mantelpiece showed that midnight was near before he had finished his work. Then he sat a little while before the dying fire, thinking much of Mr Sharnall, whom the picture had recalled to his mind, until the blackening embers warned ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... the pair of well-dressed cosmopolitans—a dead, painful silence, broken only by the low hum of the insects, the buzzing of a fly upon the window-pane, and the ticking of the old ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux

... what o'clock it was. She could not, of course, for she had never learned to tell the time by the clock. Accordingly, after looking at the hands and figures a few minutes in silence, and listening to the ticking, she said: ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas

... Rembrandtesque effect of his great head, with its white hair, against the cushion of his high-backed seat, was spoiled by the moustache, which imparted a somewhat military look to his face. An old clock that had been with him since before his marriage forty years ago kept with its ticking a jealous record of the seconds slipping away forever from ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... a "waker," as the country-people call it. Between the hours at which the last toss-pot went by and the first sparrow shook himself, the silence in Casterbridge—barring the rare sound of the watchman—was broken in Elizabeth's ear only by the time-piece in the bedroom ticking frantically against the clock on the stairs; ticking harder and harder till it seemed to clang like a gong; and all this while the subtle-souled girl asking herself why she was born, why sitting in a room, and blinking at the candle; why things around her had taken the shape they wore in preference ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy

... Indian dimity, cotton jump stripe, linen filled with tow, cotton striped with silk, Roman M., janes twilled, huccabac, broadcloth, counter-pain, birdseye diaper, Kirsey wool, barragon, fustian, bed-ticking, herring-box, and shalloon." ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth

... ears came the tick-ticking of an alarm clock, from the corner of the room to his right. He dare not look at it. Warren's eyes grew ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball

... between me and the fulfilment of my purpose is a gray-haired timekeeper with kindly eyes. He sits in a glass cage and about him are a score or more of clocks all ticking soundly and all surrounded by an extra dial of small numbers running from one to a thousand. Each number means a workman—each tick of the clock a moment of his life gone in the service of the pickle company. I rap on the window of the ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst

... instrument was ticking furiously. Mr. Cashell interpreted: "'K.K.V. Can make nothing of your signals.'" A pause. "'M.M.V. M.M.V. Signals unintelligible. Purpose anchor Sandown Bay. Examine instruments to-morrow.' Do you know what that means? ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling

... with the eyes fixed upon the crystal, not by a fixed stare, but with a steady, calm gaze, for ten minutes only, on the first occasion. In taking the time it is best to hang your watch at a distance, where, while the face is clearly visible, the ticking is rendered inaudible. When the time is up, carefully put the crystal away in its case, and keep it in a dark place, under lock and key, allowing no one but yourself to handle it. At the second sitting, which should be at the same place, in the same position, and at the ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita

... being rescued from a terrible giant who intended to dash out your brains and eat you for supper. Bumper's heart began to beat slower and slower until pretty soon it wasn't going any faster than the ticking of the clock outside in ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh

... little bug heart went pitty-pat, and sounded as if it would run a race with the ticking of ...
— Friendly Fairies • Johnny Gruelle

... and sky. The watchman dozed on his post of observation; a porter slept on a baggage truck under the awning, and as Beryl peeped into the telegraph office, she heard the snoring of the operator, whose head rested upon the table close to the silent instrument. She listened to the ticking of a clock in the ticket office, but could not see its face; wondered how late it was, and how long she had been absent. Feeling very lonely and restless she closed the door, and sat down in the deserted waiting-room, glad of the companionship ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... to dinner my uncle had not yet been home. Still it was early. I sat staring at the clock for some time and when its ticking began to irritate me, I left the room. I mounted the staircase and gained the upper part of the house. The high cold empty gloomy rooms liberated me and I went from room to room singing. From the front window I saw my companions ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce

... and stately in its sense of venerable faithfulness, was gravely ticking off the moments with hospitality in its tone. A pleasant-faced lassie showed me to my room, reminding me that the evening ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles

... however, each time it proved to be a false alarm; and so the fifteen minutes passed completely, and then five, and five again. The girl had quite given up studying by that time, and was gazing at the clock, and listening to its ticking, and wondering very much indeed. At last when more than three-quarters of an hour had passed since David had left, she got up and went to the door once more to listen; as she did not hear anything she went out on the piazza, and finally to the road. All about her was veiled in ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair

... of making a noise is that used by the beetle known by the grim name of the 'death-watch.' In our own houses this little beetle often causes great alarm by the ticking or tapping sound which it makes by striking its head against the wall. Ignorant people look upon this noise as a warning of approaching death; but, really, it is meant to charm and attract any other beetles of the kind which may be ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... stiff cloth, but the writer has always used a flexible cloth. The sizes, shape, and methods of folding and breaking in as shown in Fig. 21 below have proved successful. Cloths made of whalebone ticking are inexpensive and make the ...
— Elements of Plumbing • Samuel Dibble

... movable furniture without which the room seemed incomplete, deftly slipped in between the circle of legs and feet, and curled up upon Jinny's lap. Her snoring, a wheezy noise that made Jimbo wonder 'why it didn't scrape her,' was as familiar as the ticking of the clock. Old Mere Riquette knew her rights. And she exacted them. Jinny's lap was one of these. She had a face like an old peasant woman, with a curious snub nose and irregular whiskers that betrayed recklessly the advance of age. Her snores and gentle ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood

... her that the most curious little silence followed this speech of hers, and yet she knew that in actual time it was nothing, and felt that it existed probably only in her own heart. She heard the clock on the mantelpiece across the room ticking; far off, the rattle of a taxicab. The air coming through the open window bore the damp, stirring smell of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... with peculiar qualities. They heard the little clock ticking upon the mantelpiece, the tinkle of a hansom bell outside, the muffled sound of motor horns in the distance. Very slowly her head drooped back once more to the ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... of tulips and daffodils, hyacinths and narcissus—the splendid colouring of the beds being wonderfully increased by their borderings of clipped box. An air of sunshiny peace was over the place, and as the upper-half of the side-door stood open he tied his horse and went in. The ticking of the tall house-clock was the only sound he heard at first, but as he stood irresolute, a sweet, thin voice in an adjoining room began to sing ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr

... suffered as the afternoon faded and the ticking of the clock thudded on his senses, no one ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock

... the red mud they have been washed in renders them a piteous example of misplaced confidence. Other things fare rather better—not much—but my poor gowns are only hopeless wrecks, and I am reduced to some old yachting dresses of ticking and serge. The price of washing, as this spoiling process is pleasantly called, is enormous, and I exhaust my faculties in devising more economical arrangements. We can't wash at home, for the simple reason that we have ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various

... those who have thus struggled upward to success is not their only, or indeed their chief reward. When, after years of toil, of opposition, of ridicule, of repeated failure, Cyrus W. Field placed his hand upon the telegraph instrument ticking a message under the sea, think you that the electric thrill passed no further than the tips of his fingers? When Thomas A. Edison demonstrated in Menlo Park that the electric light had at last been developed into a commercial success, do you suppose those bright rays failed to ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden

... very still. Listening intently, he could not hear the slightest sound. The silence and utter darkness indeed soon became overpowering, and he took his watch from his pocket that he might have the companionship of its ticking and see the glimmering ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts

... houses, and the bird is hated for faults not his own. But prejudices of taste, likings and dislikings, are not always vanquishable by reason; so, to escape the serenade from the tree, which promised to be of considerable duration (when once that eternal song begins, on it goes ticking like a clock)—to escape that noise I determined to excite another, and challenged Lizzy to a cowslip-gathering; a trial of skill and speed, to see which should soonest fill her basket. My stratagem succeeded completely. What scrambling, what ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford

... Dr. Gys said to her, his voice keen with elation, "what fools we are to take any human condition for granted. Man is a machine. Smash his mechanism and it cannot work; make the proper repairs before it is too late and—there he goes, ticking away as before. Not as good a machine as it was prior to the break, but with care and caution it will run a ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne

... withdrew from the table and for an instant the room was so quiet that you could hear some far-off clock ticking out the minutes. Then Judge Ostrander rose and in a peremptory ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green

... I sat at the desk reading the reports of recent fires. The place was very quiet—the sounds of the great city were hushed—the night was calm, and nothing was heard but the soft breathing of the sleepers and the ticking of the clock as I sat there waiting for a fire. I often looked at the telegraph needles and, (I am half ashamed to say it), longed for them to move and give us "a call." At last, when I had begun ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne

... of the stringed musical instruments that could be heard in the tent. They were soon inside. A platform on a wagon served as a stage, and a curtain with a cabin and woods as a background hung at the rear of the stage. The entire company of seven persons attired in shirts and trousers made of bed-ticking material, were seated in a semi-circle ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... stair-case, with a bayonet stuck in his back to expedite matters. I do not know if this threat lent an added zest to the search, but fortunately someone had the happy thought to look under the mattress (where the officer had put it himself) and there was the ill-fated timepiece calmly ticking off German minutes. I think I forgot to tell you that since the invasion we retire at ten instead of eleven o'clock, having been advised ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow

... comfortable chair in which he sat brought him that peculiar peace of home which is one of the greatest gifts travel can bestow. Even the ticking of the clock came to his senses gratefully. Home at last, after all the pain, the dreary nights and days of acute loneliness, and only ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed

... with which honest people regard serious interests, kept himself back from the straightforward course of life among certain selected activities. And now, all of a sudden, he is unhorsed, like St. Paul, from his infidel affectation. His heart, which has been ticking accurate seconds for the last year, gives a bound and begins to beat high and irregularly in his breast. It seems as if he had never heard or felt or seen until that moment; and by the report of his memory, he must have ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... on the table remained untasted, and the only sounds heard were the solemn ticking of the old clock, the soft rustling of the kettle on the stove, and now and then a long drawn sigh from father or mother, as one strove to utter a comforting word to ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis

... Eliot Leithgow fitted the cone on the Eurasian's face and fastened it there. The fingers and thumb of one hand he kept on Dr. Ku's pulse; with the other he pulled over slowly a control set in the side of the drum. A ticking and slight hissing became audible, and two indicators on the drum ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore

... the table-clock ticked merrily on, seeming to hasten its ticking as the hand crept around closer and closer to midnight. The mosaic shade of the lamp mingled reds and blues and greens upon the white ceiling above and poured golden light upon the pages of manuscript strewn about beneath it. This was a typical work-room of a literary man having ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer

... been me, linking in the streets, with an armful of golden cups! Did you suppose I hadn't wit enough to see that? and I scorned the action. There are your damned goblets, as safe as in a church; there are you, with your heart ticking as good as new; and here am I, ready to go out again as poor as I came in, with my one white that you threw in my teeth! And you think I have no sense of honour—God ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various

... old carpet-sack pattern dragged their formless feet about, waiting to take the train for the next station to hire out there as rice harvesters, and one, with his back turned, leaned motionless against an open window gazing in upon the ticking telegraph instruments. A black woman in blue cotton gown, red-and-yellow Madras turban, and some sportsman's cast-off hunting-shoes minus the shoe-strings, crouched against the wall. Beside her stood her shapely mulatto daughter, ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... could be felt in the little kitchen; a silence only broken by the ticking of the tall clock and the beating of Rebecca's heart, which, it seemed to her, almost drowned the voice of the clock. The rain ceased, a sudden rosy light filled the room, and through the window a rainbow arch could be seen spanning ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... other teachers know a good deal of English, and we chat together sometimes between classes. But more often no one speaks. All are tired after the teaching hour, and prefer to smoke in silence. At such times the only sounds within the room are the ticking of the clock, and the sharp clang of the little pipes being rapped upon the edges of the hibachi ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn

... the one positive sign of pregnancy and it may be heard as early as the sixteenth to the twentieth week. It has been compared to the ticking of a watch under a pillow. It ranges in frequency from one hundred and ten to one hundred and fifty to ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... had become accustomed during the four days we had been on board. Naturally, with such powerful engines as the Titanic carried, the vibration was very noticeable all the time, and the sudden stopping had something the same effect as the stopping of a loud-ticking grandfather's clock ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various

... which always beat with an energy seeming to say: "I must get to the goal! I must get to the goal!" slackened its hasty ticking. The flies buzzed irresolutely, as if pondering ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky

... splinters of starlight, one could distinguish a lean form, terribly like the body of a dead person, the body indeed of William Pepper, asleep too. Thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight—here were three Portuguese men of business, asleep presumably, since a snore came with the regularity of a great ticking clock. Thirty-nine was a corner room, at the end of the passage, but late though it was—"One" struck gently downstairs—a line of light under the door showed that some one was ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf

... store-orderly's trained powers of observation could see that pleat, or the absence of it, even as the shirt slid across his line of vision in a torrent of other shirts. His hand shot out and grabbed it back from joining the heap on the floor within the counter. His pencil poised itself from the ticking-off of the items on the form. "Wrong again!" he would cry, sometimes in anguish and sometimes in anger. And there was nothing for it but to apologise. To keep on good terms with the various orderlies in the various stores was the secret of making ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir

... In German, the word Kitzel signifies both itching and tickling and is likewise used to denote both sexual desire and sexual gratification. Consult my note "Itching, Ticking, and Sexual Sensibility," in the English edition of Bloch's The Sexual Life of ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll

... died there was silence in heaven And silence at her end of the street. The shutters were drawn and the undertaker wiped his feet— He was aware that this sort of thing had occurred before. The dogs were handsomely provided for, But shortly afterwards the parrot died too. The Dresden clock continued ticking on the mantelpiece, And the footman sat upon the dining-table Holding the second housemaid on his knees— Who had always been so ...
— Prufrock and Other Observations • T. S. Eliot

... came and measured him for the handsomest coffin which money could buy—even this didn't console Bulbo. The Cook brought him dishes which he once used to like; but he wouldn't touch them: he sat down and began writing an adieu to Angelica, as the clock kept always ticking, and the hands drawing nearer to next morning. The Barber came in at night, and offered to shave him for the next day. Prince Bulbo kicked him away, and went on writing a few words to Princess Angelica, as the clock ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray

... in St. Charles you can see an old Negro man coming down the street with a small sack made of bed ticking hanging shot-pouch fashion from his shoulder. This is old Uncle Jonas Boone who by the aid of his heavy cane walks to town and makes the round of his white folks homes to be given some old shoes, clothes, or possibly a mess of ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... assured that he had reached the ground in safety, he proceeded to take off his wrinkled duster, fold it tenderly, and lay it on the seat, from beneath which he pulled out a bulky bundle, securely tied up in bed-ticking. ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin

... or in an interesting conversation so that we were not giving any attention whatever to the way, and yet every step was taken correctly under the guidance of our eyes. We saw the street, although we were not conscious of seeing it. We do not hear a clock ticking in our room when we are working, and yet if the clock suddenly stops we notice it. This indicates that the ticking of the clock reached us somehow and had an effect on us in spite of our not being conscious of it. The scientists are still debating whether it is best ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg

... at Kitty, and heard her tongue ticking away, like the little clock she was; she had her Bohm, she had her nautical costume and her Remsen cooler. These, with the lunch that would come in ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister

... proud hearts. The painful reverie might, perhaps, have lasted till the pallid dawn looked in with tearful eyes at the window, but Paragon, who was sleeping on the rug at her feet, started up and growled. She raised her head and listened, but only the ticking of the clock was audible, and the wailing of the wind ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... the ghastly fancy, and told it to Tardif in one of his waking intervals, but he was so terrified and troubled by it that it grew to have some little importance in my own eyes. So the night wore slowly away, the tall clock in the corner ticking out the seconds and striking the hours with a fidelity to its duty, which helped to keep me awake. Twice or thrice I crept, with quite unnecessary caution, into the ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... door came the steady ticking of a clock. The silence was so absolute that both men ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine

... around the world. Men, states and empires, rise and flash like bubbles On the rolling ocean of existence, And then like the false, shimmering vision Of a dream, pass into nameless oblivion. The hours, days, years and ages, lost and gone Are only a moment from the ticking clock Of eternity. And all future time, Incalculable as drops of ocean Or leaves of grass, come and go incessant, Like the balmy airs; or whistling winds That blow o'er tropic or arctic lands. I know and feel that myriad spirits People the vast, circumambient air,— And as my soul within ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce

... loves but one at a time what does it matter whether it is during an interval of two years or the course of a single night? Are you a man, Octave? Do you see the leaves falling from the trees, the sun rising and setting? Do you hear the ticking of the clock of time with each pulsation of your heart? Is there, then, such a difference between the love of a year and the love of an hour? I challenge you to answer that, you fool, as you sit there looking out at the infinite through a window ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset

... slowly; they could hear a slow, heavy, ticking. There was an old clock in the passage. Clarke felt sick and faint; his knees shook beneath him, he ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen

... length, "there's something interesting, the WXY call—Seaville station—from some one on the Lucie only a few minutes ago, sending a message to be relayed by Seaville to the station at Beach Park. It seems impossible, but buzzing and ticking forth is this message from some one off this very houseboat. It reads: "Miss Valerie Fox, Beach Park. I am suspected of the murder of Mrs. Edwards. I appeal to you to help me. You must allow me to tell the truth about the messages I intercepted for Mrs. ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve



Words linked to "Ticking" :   ticktock, sound, tocktact, fabric, tick, tictac, textile, material, cloth, ticking bomb



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