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Tic   Listen
noun
Tic  n.  (Med.) A local and habitual convulsive motion of certain muscles; especially, such a motion of some of the muscles of the face; twitching; velication; called also spasmodic tic.
Tic douloureux. (Med.) Neuralgia in the face; face ague. See under Face.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Tic" Quotes from Famous Books



... "in 1826, we put into San Francisco harbor and sent our boats up to San Jose for water and we took goats from some of those islands, too. Oh! I know the coast well enough. We were on our way to the Ar'tic Ocean ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes

... walked along with hurried steps his heart beat fast, tic, tac, tic, tac, like a drawing-room clock when it is really going well. Meanwhile ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various

... reasonable precautions against catching cold, but do not render your body unwholesome from over-clothing, nor your lungs sickly for want of the pure air of heaven that you can no more live well without than a fish can survive in a muddy stream. Sore throat and tic doloreux, or face-ache, are very common complaints in cold weather with high winds. But I really think they are more easily prevented than cured. Both may be produced in the same way—namely, from exposure to cold. It is ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 354, October 9, 1886 • Various

... Tic-tac! tic-tac! go the wheels of thought; our will cannot stop them; they cannot stop themselves, sleep cannot still them; madness only makes them go faster; death alone can break into the case, and, seizing the ever-swinging ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... night with a tolerably quiet conscience. He may have hastened a patient to his account by a trifling over-dose; but he has not hurried men into villainous litigation, that will eventuate in their ruin. His worst offense against the community shall be a mistaking of toothache for tic-douloureux, and lumbago for gout—oh, d——n the gout!"—for at that portion of his speech the poor colonel had ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various

... succeeding monarchs, have formed the basis for a revival of a remarkable character. The sudden renaissance of Queen Anne or Free Classic architecture is the growth of but fourteen years, and yet all classes of society have been alike filled with aspirations for Queen An-tic houses, and for domestic appliances, and even dresses and garniture, associated with that period. The extremely low art of the last decade of the seventeenth century has become the "high art" of to-day, and bids fair, after outgrowing the eccentricities of plan and detail with which many designers ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various

... A peculiar tic, a convulsive twitch of the nose, would agitate his face from time to time, and it was this that completed his resemblance to a rabbit. His merriment was just as likely to find issue in a nervous, metallic, sonorous outburst as in a muffled, clownish ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja

... condition where involuntary and spasmodic muscular contractions, especially of the face, have become an established habit. This breaks up the speech in a manner somewhat similar to ordinary stuttering. Also known as "Tic Speech." ...
— Stammering, Its Cause and Cure • Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue

... father wudn't hold wud her goings on," was the doctrine promulgated by the Woolpack; but the general council sitting in the bar of the Crown decreed that the trouble had arisen out of Fuller's spirited refusal to sell some lambs that had tic. Other pronouncements were that she had sassed Fuller because he knew more about sheep than she did—or that Fuller had sassed her for the same reason—that it wasn't Joanna who had dismissed him, but he who had been regretfully obliged to give notice, owing to her meddling—that ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith

... right. I do not expect any tic to-night, and shall be at work again to-morrow. I have had a day of open air, only a little modified by Le Capitaine Fracasse before the dining-room fire. I must write no more, for I am sleepy after two nights, to quote my book, "sinon blanches, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... battery as thoroughly as possible, set the battery on the floor near your work bench. Make a sketch of the top of the battery, showing the exact arrangement of the terminals and connectors. This sketch should be made on the tag which is tied to the battery. Tic this tag on the handle near the negative terminal of the battery or tack it to the ease. Then drill down over the Center of the posts. For this you will need a large brace with a heavy chuck, a drill the same size as the post (the ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte

... rotting and leaving a tube of tightly laced branches in which are creatures that bleed through the bark at a sword-thrust or an ax-cut. These creatures are mischievously alleged to be Spaniards. The Tagalogs believe in Tic-Balan, an evil spirit who inhabits fig-trees, but is kept off by wearing a certain herb, and in a female spirit of the woods, Azuan, who is kept away from the house in times of domestic anxiety by the husband, who mounts to the roof and keeps up ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner

... Her demoralization under the long-continued terror was complete, and all were glad when she became unconscious and could be hidden from sight. As Aun' Sheba made her way to her own household she grunted, "A lun'tic out ob a 'sylem wouldn' mar'y dat gal if he seed ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe

... to-night, he'll sleep sound, the dear man; and he needs it, too, because of his sufferings, for he does suffer, I can tell you, and more's the pity. But I'd like to know what a healthy man like him wants to burn his back for, just to get rid of a tic douleureux which troubles him once in two years. However, to come back to our business. I have my neighbor's key; her lodging is just above mine, and in it there's a room adjoining the one where Monsieur ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac

... git out!" cried Susan. "Your ole woman's got seben chillun, shore 'nuf, an' I s'pec' dey's all debbils. But dem sent'ments don't apply ter all de udder women h'yar, 'tic'larly ter dem dar young uns ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various

... 'mires fo' to see yo' at de house right erway. I 'spects it's business fo' de gun'ner. De c'unel mos' 'tic'lar dat say he wants to see yo' to ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter

... that these bullets were pouring out from about the second highest rung of seats on the West of that amphitheatre in which we were striving to take our places. Ashore the machine guns and rifles never ceased—tic tac, tic tac, brrrr—tic tac, tic tac, brrrrrr...... Drowned every few seconds by our tremendous salvoes, this more nervous noise crept back insistently into our ears in the interval. As men fixed in the grip of nightmare, we were powerless—unable ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton

... pa'tic'lar ag'in Mis' Betterson as I know on," said Peakslow, "though of course she sides with him ag'in me, an' of course you side ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge

... s'pose ye've got so grand down ter the mills, thet, w'at 'ith yer looms an' machines an' tic-doloreux, ye won't hev nothin' ter say ter the old way uv ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various

... asked the child, pointing. Detricand put the watch to the child's ear. "It's to keep time. Listen. Do you hear it-tic- tic, tic-tic?"' ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... sa charcuterie, et apres elle s'arrete au coin de la rue pour regarder Paris. C'etait un tic qu'elle avait, de regarder Paris. Cela tenait de la ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 100. Feb. 28, 1891 • Various

... bread; unable to buy, and ashamed to beg, because we would not disgrace his sacred calling. But how often have I seen him leave his home, where the sick and the hungry felt, when he left them, that they had lost their only earthly friend, to ride on a duty which could not be neglected for domes tic evils! Oh! how hard it must be to preach consolation to others when your own heart is ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... three, Mere-Marie, p'tit Jacques, and Petie, we go up from the beach, up the street that goes tic tac, zic zac, here and there, up the hill; very steep in zose parts. We come to one place, ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

... frequently obliged to repeat the dose several times a day, as my stomach had become so weak that the opium would not remain upon it; and I was besides afflicted with continual vomiting after having eaten any thing. I really believed that I could not last much longer. Tic-douloureux was also added to my other suffering; constant headache, occasional spasms, heart-burn, pains in the legs and back, and a general irritability of the nerves, which would not allow me to remain above a few minutes in the same position. ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day

... were hard and well developed—but to my intellect. I take this opportunity of stating that I think the charge unjust. But, to conclude my description of myself; I am romantic. One of my dearest companions used to say that my nose was the same, minus the tic! What he meant by that I never could make out. I doubt if ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne

... "I'm par-tic-u-lar-ly fond of dancing," said Mrs. Mowbray, with strong emphasis. "Only the young men are so rude! They fly about after young chits of girls, and don't notice me. And so I don't often have an opportunity, you know. But there is a German gentleman ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille

... cul'prit al'to hec'tic dit'ty clum'sy can'ter helm'et gid'dy dul'cet mar'ry fen'nel fil'ly fun'nel ral'ly ken'nel sil'ly gul'ly nap'kin bel'fry liv'id buck'et hap'py ed'dy lim'it gus'set pan'try en'try lim'ber sul'len ram'mer en'vy riv'et sum'mon ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey

... all kinds o' fancy ropin', an' I was a shade the better at all of it; but those confounded cusses kept on claimin' it was a tic until I got het up a little, an' sez 'at we'll have a lassoo duel an' that'll settle it, even among blind men. This ain't all amusement, this lassoo-duel on hoss-back, an' I see Andrews look wickedly content. "Nothing barred," sez he; "we rope ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason

... King's visit to Paris. Furthermore, she divined that Mme. Ceiron and Fantomas were the same person. It was she who offered the salts, undoubtedly inducing her unconsciousness. The sound of a steady tic-tac she recognized as coming from a ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre

... dark-green chaparral; patches of flowers could be seen on the warm sheltered slopes of the hills; and as we passed close under the lighthouse bluff, Bush shouted joyously, "Hurrah, there's clover!" "Clover!" exclaimed the captain contemptuously, "there ain't any clover in the Ar'tic Regions!" "How do you know, you've never been there," retorted Bush caustically; "it looks like clover, and"—looking through a glass—"it is clover"; and his face lighted up as if the discovery of clover had relieved his mind of a great deal of anxiety as ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan

... from the protruding fibres of the wood; there were the straw-bottomed stools still; and at the window, Mother Martha's arm-chair, before which, as a child, he had repeated his lessons; there still hung the same little glass between the windows; and the wall-clock above the stove sent forth its tic-tac as fastly as ever. Father Jonas, in his enlarged workshop, with more journeymen and apprentices, smelted and hammered, filed and formed still, from morning to night, as before. The noble housewife flew about yet busy as a bee: she had managed the housekeeping without a servant since ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various

... expressions of the individual, this defect laying the groundwork for the impulsions and obsessions, as also for hysterical, so-called neurasthenic, hypochondriacal, depressive and so-called dementia praecox reactions. The tic movement is the symbol of the psychic defect or ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10

... for we are approaching the Golden Gate. I must now pack up my things, and finish my log. I have stuck to it at all hours and in all weathers; jotted down little bits from time to time in the intervals of sea-sickness, toothache, and tic douloureux; written under a burning tropical sun, and amidst the drizzle and down-pour of the North Pacific; but I have found pleasure in keeping it up, because I know that it will be read with pleasure by those for whom it is written, ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles

... introduction and acclimation of the mongoose to the cane fields of the Western tropics; the tiger snake (Heplocephalus curtus) is the terror of Australian plains; the fer de lance (Craspedocephalus lanceolatus) renders the paradise of Martinique almost uninhabitable; the tic paloonga (Daboii russelli) is the scourge of Cinghalese coffee estates; the giant ehlouhlo of Natal (unclassified) by its presence secures a forbidding waste for miles about; the far famed cobra de capello ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various

... divi-bhavas, being in heaven; oikeios, domesticus, originally oikei-o-s, being in the house. These are adjectives formed, it would seem, from old locatives, just as in Bask we can form from etche, house, etche-tic, of the house, and etche-tic-acoa, he who is of the house; or from seme, son, semea-ren, of the son, and semea-ren-a, he who is of the son. See W.J. van Eys, Essai de Grammaire de la ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller

... could they think of?" Fay laughed. "This season sex means VV and nobody else." An odd little grin flicked his lips, a tic traveled up his face and his body twitched slightly. "Say, folks, I'm going to have to be leaving. It's exactly fifteen minutes to Second Curfew. Last time I had to run and I got heartburn. When are you people going to move downstairs? I'll leave Tickler, Gussy. Play around ...
— The Creature from Cleveland Depths • Fritz Reuter Leiber

... said the peer, and he gnashed his teeth, and glanced at his maimed limb; "for though lameness would not prevent my keeping my seat, violent exercise hurts my leg; and Brodie says any fresh accident might bring on tic douloureux;—and as my gout does not permit me to join the shooting parties at present, it would be a kindness in you to lend me your pistols—it would while away an hour or so; though, thank Heaven, my duelling days ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... widout I should go 'long wid him, and tote him in my ol' arms on a fedder-bed jes' like I would a leetle baby, and den stay and nuss him arter I got him dar. For dem 'ar white trash, what ye s'pose day knows 'bout takin' keer ob a sick gemman like him? It's a bery 'tic'lar case. He's got de delirimum a comin' on him now, and I can't be away from him a minute. I mus' go back to ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge

... Beneath him he could hear sounds well known and full of charm, songs that escaped in the satisfaction of work accomplished, assembled laughter, the pianoforte lesson being given by Bonne Maman, the tic-tac of the metronome, all the delicious household stir that pleased his heart. He lived with his darlings, who certainly never could have guessed that they ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... and fog which covers our ideas about the chronic variety. The catholicity of the term is something incredible. Every chronic pain and twinge, from corns to locomotor ataxia, and from stone-in-the-kidney to tic-douloureux, has been put down as "rheumatism." It is little better than a diagnostic garbage-dump or dust-heap, where can be shot down all kinds of vague and wandering pains in joints, bones, muscles, and nerves, which have no visible or ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson

... again and lie, wide-eyed, thinking how insomnia and grief hasten irremediably the horrible work of fleeting time. She listened in the silence of the night to the ticking of the clock, which seemed to murmur, in its monotonous and regular tic-tac: "It goes, it goes, it goes!" and her heart shrank with such suffering that, with the sheet gripped between her teeth, she ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant

... got the rheumatics, and can't; and I, Sammy—I've got the two tickets as wos sent her.' Mr. Weller communicated this secret with great glee, and winked so indefatigably after doing so, that Sam began to think he must have got the TIC DOLOUREUX in his ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... restless and irritable, for her hands were moist, and the needle refused to be driven through the thick cloth. How often she glanced up at the clock on the wall during those long hours, when the minute hand was surely stuck at half-past three, and the regular tic-tac seemed to fill the quiet room with its sleepy droning. So hot, so still, so long were the hours ...
— Uncle Titus and His Visit to the Country • Johanna Spyri

... the valley incessantly ascend. This afternoon, the dull murmuring of the river, the panting respiration of the tug-boat, the vibration of a bell in a distant church tower, the song of a peasant girl washing her linen in a spring, the bleating of sheep, the tic tac of the mills, the tinkling bells of a long train of mules drawing a barge by a rope, the reverberating clamors of boatmen stowing casks in their boats—all these various sounds came to my ear in vibrations of surprising clearness, when suddenly a gust of wind ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne

... not answer before he had breathed awhile, and then, having tried his cigar and found it out, he scraped a match on his coat- sleeve. He looked at the flame while it burned from blue to yellow. "Well, I guess if anybody's been p'tic'lar, it's been him. There ain't any doubt but what he's got a takin' way with the women. They like him. He's masterful, and he ain't a fool, and women most gen'ly like a man that ain't a fool. I guess if he 's got his eye on the girl's prop'ty, she'll have to ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... to the entrance to tic back the door-flap, which was whipping and snapping in the breeze. Heaven be praised! the night was cooler. Nig had been perplexed when he saw the pack pushed under the table. He followed his master to the door, and stood looking ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)

... myself," admitted Riles. "They're awful p'tic'lar about lettin' people see it," he continued, with a sudden flash of inspiration. "It's so valu'ble, ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead

... Marcella, thinking to return in a minute, left me lying upon the sled and ran through the snow to Gran'ma's. And there I stayed and stayed until I began to feel stiff and could hear the cotton inside me go, 'Tic! Tic!' as ...
— Raggedy Andy Stories • Johnny Gruelle

... friends, and the companions will surely suffer. I know few climates so bad and none worse for those fecund causes of suffering in Europe, liver-affections ('mucous fevers'), diarrhoeas, and dysenteries; for nervous complaints, tic douloureux, and neuralgia, or for rheumatism and lumbago. Asthma is one of the disorders which shows the most peculiar forms, and must be treated in the most various ways: here some sufferers are benefitted, others are not. ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... gazette, his clear voice pronouncing every word with a sort of quaver in it, resembling the tic-tac of our clock in the middle of the night, and it could be distinctly heard in the square. The reading lasted a long time, for the commandant omitted nothing. I remember it commenced by declaring that the one called Bonaparte, a public enemy, who for fifteen years had held France in ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann



Words linked to "Tic" :   tic douloureux, twitch, twitching, tic-tac-toe, vellication



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