tick on

Verb

tick on (third-person singular simple present ticks on, present participle ticking on, simple past and past participle ticked on)

1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see tick, on.; to continue ticking.
   • He shuts off the engine, which ticks on mechanically, cooling down.2003, Tom Wilkins, The Demise of The Color War Captain, page 121
   • 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
2. (figuratively, or units of time) To elapse;
   • 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
3. (broadly, figuratively) To continue; to keep occurring.
   • 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
   • 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