tick off

present singular third person ticks off · participle present ticking off · participle past ticked off · past ticked off

1. figurativelysometimesTo sign an item on a list with a tick mark, especially as a signal that the item has been verified or completed.

   I ticked off Harry today because he announced he was present.

   2 more examples

   I ticked three things off the list in my head, and had only four chores left to do.

   A decade ago, I was a backpacker entirely reliant on the railways as a means to see Britain, and with castles as my destination. Via trains alone, I was able to tick off nearly all of the castles that my English Heritage annual pass afforded me.

   2022 January 12, Dr. Joseph Brennan, “Castles: ruined and redeemed by rail”, in RAIL, number 948, page 53

   Synonyms: check off, catalogue, enumerate, list, recite, tabulate

2. To list (create or recite a list).

   In a lengthy missive dispatched the next afternoon, Wheeler ticked off a laundry list of reasons why he could not obey Bragg's order.

   2010, David A. Powell, Failure in the Saddle, Savas Beatie, →ISBN, page 68

   1 more example

   “So many wars here,” says Luo Xin, my walking partner and a brilliant writer and professor of history from Peking University. I ask Luo to name them. Not breaking stride, he ticks off the wars between the Three Kingdoms more than 2,200 years ago. And then the Han-Xiongnu war of the second century B.C. And Liu Bobo’s later campaigns against the Qin empire. And the Tang versus Northern Song dynasty. And the Ming frontier wars. More recently, there was the Chinese civil war and the war against Japanese aggression. The Yellow River’s silted waters sucked away casualties from them all.

   2023 November 8, Paul Salopek, “River Blues”, in National Geographic

   Synonyms: enumerate, recite

3. CanadaUStransitiveTo annoy, aggravate.

   It really ticks me off when people don't use proper punctuation.

   Synonyms: bug, irk, aggravate, annoy, nettle, rankle, ruffle, sting

4. AustraliaUKtransitivehistorically USTo reprimand.

   Fred was ticked off by the teacher for playing around in class.

   1 more example

   Having ticked us off in this way, the rascal had an elaborate description of rails at the pit mouth, and of a zigzag excavation by which funicular trains were to burrow into the earth.

   1929, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, When the World Screamed

   Synonyms: admonish, tell off, admonish, animadvert, bash, bawl out, tilt, clobber