tic
35
6.3
- noun
- /tɪk/
:
tic
- Behavior therapy has helped reduce tics in some people with TS.
- motor tic
- vocal tics
- verbal tics
Everyone has their little tics and their things and their preferences.
- Everyone has their little tics and their things and their preferences.
- We all have our conversational tics, but the people who really suffer because of them are our partners.
Examples
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Vocal tics usually occur later than the motor tics, on average at about 11 years of age.
Academic text (1997) -
You know you have a tic, right?
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How long have you had that tic?
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Gary is the third member of his family to have a tic-related problem.
Academic text (1990) -
Everyone has their little tics and their things and their preferences.
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So I have been having a little bit of like those anxious tics again recently and like my body has been super anxious.
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A nervous tic.
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Then I felt a facial tic erupt like a tiny earthquake, shock and aftershock.
Fiction book (1995) -
Despite his sallow complexion and the persistent tic at the corner of his mouth, Concepcion was engaging and intelligent.
Fiction book (1995) -
Whenever I am nervous, I tend to have a tic that makes my eye twitch uncontrollably.
Synonyms
12
4.3
A quick, sudden movement of a muscle you cannot control, often in an eyelid
Compounds
- Archaic
Severe sudden pain on one side of the face when a nerve sends wrong signals
How Intense
Surface Forms
Etymology
Tic comes from French tic, probably from copying a short sound like 'tick'. Think of the quick, repeated 'tick' of a clock to remember that a tic is a small, sudden, repeated muscle movement or twitch.