clock
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /klɒk/
enpr: kläk
ipa: /klɑk/
note: Liverpool
ipa: [kl̥ɒχ]
rhymes: -ɒk
Forms: form: clocks
form: clocking
form: clocked
form: clocked
form: CLK
Etymology: First use appears c. 1370. Middle English clokke, clok, cloke, from Middle Dutch clocke (“bell, clock”), from Old Dutch *klokka, from Medieval Latin clocca, probably of Celtic origin, from Proto-Celtic *klokkos (“bell”) (compare Welsh cloch, Old Irish cloc), either onomatopoeic or from Proto-Indo-European *klek- (“to laugh, cackle”) (compare Proto-Germanic *hlahjaną (“to laugh”)). Related to Old English clucge, Dutch klok, Saterland Frisian Klokke (“bell; clock”), Low German Klock (“bell, clock”), German Glocke, Swedish klocka. Doublet of cloak and cloche.
Senses: synonyms: time
glosses: To measure the duration of.
examples: text: He was clocked at 155 miles per hour.
text: Dan Patch clocked a scorching 1:55.5 flat.
ref: 1996, Jon Byrell, Lairs, Urgers and Coat-Tuggers, Sydney: Ironbark, page 186:
glosses: To measure the speed of.
examples: text: When the boxer let down his guard, his opponent clocked him.
synonyms: slug
smack
thump
whack
glosses: To hit (someone) heavily.
examples: text: Clock the wheels on that car!
text: It is true. Carmen is an official gold digger. In fact, she is an instructor at the school of gold digging. Hood rats have been clocking her style for years. Wanting to pull the players she pulled, and wishing they had the looks she had.
ref: 2005, Jr. Aaron Bryant, Cupid Is Stupid, page 19:
text: Cut to the pub on a lads night out, / Man at the bar cos it was his shout, / Clocks this bird and she looks OK, / Caught him looking and she walks his way,
ref: 2006, Lily Allen, “Knock 'Em Out”:
text: First it was only when I was with him—we would pass a pretty girl, I would notice her first, and my eyes would dart to his to see him clock her.
ref: 2021, Megan Nolan, Acts of Desperation, Random House, →ISBN:
text: He made it to ten yards away. Still they hadn't clocked him. Five yards. He felt increasingly confident about grabbing the actual thief, even if it meant letting the other lad get away. Both were pretty scrawny kids, although the other one was quite a bit older, maybe twenty,[…]
ref: 2021 July 1, Nick Oldham, Scarred, Severn House Publishers Ltd, →ISBN:
text: I had just long enough at Lancaster to clock another plaque to a great Victorian railway engineer, Joseph Locke (1805-60).
ref: 2021 December 29, Stephen Roberts, “Stories and facts behind railway plaques: Lancaster (1860)”, in RAIL, number 947, page 58:
coordinate_terms: check out
scope out
glosses: To notice; to take notice of (someone or something).
examples: text: I'd already clocked her as someone who couldn't reliably be believed when she spoke. And now this too!
text: Bo John and I twisted our heads around as Miranda braked over to the gravelly shoulder, let the Scout wheeze to a stop. She was climbing out, hurrying back to whatever had caught her eye. Bo John leered into the door mirror, clocking her flouncing, leggy strut.
ref: 2000, Phil Austin, Naugahide Days: The Lost Island Stories of Thomas Wood Briar, page 109:
glosses: To recognize; to assess, register.
raw_tags: with as
examples: text: Once my transition was complete I considered moving to London, where I felt there was less chance of being clocked and a larger support network.
text: Jaz said that the palpitations of fear he used to experience at the prospect of being publicly outed in the gurdwara dissipated after he clocked other gay Sikhs in there, even one who professed a Jat caste identity, he said – Jatness being associated with stereotypical dominant macho masculinity. He reflected that this was a major factor in his rapprochement with his[…]
ref: 2018 September 14, Nicola Frost, Tom Selwyn, Travelling towards Home: Mobilities and Homemaking, Berghahn Books, →ISBN, page 23:
text: Consuella Lopez, the director of operations and housing at Casa Ruby, remembers. "The more passable your body was, the less bullying you'd get, the more chances of you getting a regular job at a regular place without somebody clocking you."
ref: 2019 September 1, Dani Nett, “For Trans Women, Silicone 'Pumping' Can Be A Blessing And A Curse”, in NPR:
text: Jess was a sixty-something, short, White, bald man who could easily be "clocked" as gay.
ref: 2022 February 1, Townsand Price-Spratlen, Addiction Recovery and Resilience: Faith-based Health Services in an African American Community, State University of New York Press, →ISBN:
text: Quarantine had thrown a new wrench "do not perceive me" discourse, but trans people have arguably always had a messy relationship to being perceived. We avoid it, and yet we also juice our lives to be seen. Getting clocked feels bad, but being hot feels good.
ref: 2022 March 1, Charlie Markbreiter, “"Other Trans People Make Me Dysphoric": Trans Assimilation and Cringe”, in The New Inquiry:
synonyms: read
glosses: To identify (someone) as having some attribute (for example, being trans or gay).
examples: text: I don't believe that car has done only 40,000 miles. It's been clocked.
synonyms: turn back (the vehicle's) clock
wind back (the vehicle's) clock
glosses: To falsify the reading of the odometer of a vehicle.
examples: text: Have you clocked that game yet?
glosses: To beat a video game.
Derived terms: clockable
clocker
clock in
clock off
clock on
clock onto
clock out
clock the tea
clock up
clocky
downclock
overclock
reclock
self-clocking
underclock
upclock