tick-tock

Definitions

1. The sound of a ticking clock.
2. A step-by-step account of an event or timeline.

Equivalents

Examples

“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.”

“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.”

CEFR level