make tick

English

Etymology

An allusion to the workings of a clock making it operate with a ticking noise.

Verb

make tick (third-person singular simple present makes tick, present participle making tick, simple past and past participle made tick)

1. (colloquial) To cause someone or something to operate the way it does.
   • 2005, Cherie Priest, Four and Twenty Blackbirds, →ISBN, page 91:

     I honestly don't know the specifics that make him tick, and I wish I did.

   • 2012, Kevin Seamus Hasson, The Right to Be Wrong: Ending the Culture War Over Religion in America, →ISBN:

     Most of us find ourselves caught in the middle, ducking for cover and wondering just who these people are and what could possibly make them tick.

   • 2013, Betty Lussier, Intrepid Woman: Betty Lussier's Secret War, 1942-1945, →ISBN:

     I wanted to roam the world, exploring what made it tick, helping to make it tick better, and never get married.

   • 2025 October 15, Vitali Vitaliev, “The recipe for Swiss bliss”, in RAIL, number 1046, page 68:

     So what is it that makes SBB (Swiss national railways) tick? In my humble opinion, two things. Firstly, a comprehensive and set-in-stone integrated timetable (incorporating trains, ferries, cable cars and buses, including the world-famous yellow 'post-autos'), compiled four years in advance and which gets tested twice before it becomes operational.

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see make,‎ tick.

Usage notes

This is normally used with an intervening word or words, referring to a person, thing or organisation.