tick-tocks

Noun

tick-tock (plural tick-tocks)

1. The sound of a ticking clock.
   • 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.2023 March 22, Ben West, “This 835-Year-Old English Manor Needs Some Modern Love”, in The New York Times
2. A step-by-step account of an event or timeline.
   • 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...2020 May 6, Jordan Weissmann, “It Sure Looks Like the Trump Administration Used Some Bad, High School–Level Math to Justify 'Reopening' the Economy”, in Slate

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