clock

Forms

1.A chronometer, an instrument that measures time, particularly the time of day.
- When the clock says midnight.
- In the June days of 1848 Baudelaire reports seeing revolutionaries (he might have been one of them) going through the streets of Paris with rifles, shooting all the clocks.
2.A common noun relating to an instrument that measures or keeps track of time.
- A 12-hour clock system; an antique clock sale; Acme is a clock manufacturer.
3.The odometer of a motor vehicle.
- This car has over 300,000 miles on the clock.
4.An electrical signal that synchronizes timing among digital circuits of semiconductor chips or modules.
- I bought her a clock.
- A clock has two hands.

1.To measure the duration of.
2.To measure the speed of.
- He was clocked at 155 miles per hour.
- Dan Patch clocked a scorching 1:55.5 flat.
3.To hit (someone) heavily.(slang)
- When the boxer let down his guard, his opponent clocked him.
4.To notice; to take notice of (someone or something).(informal)
- I had just long enough at Lancaster to clock another plaque to a great Victorian railway engineer, Joseph Locke (1805-60).
- Clock the wheels on that car!
- 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.

Uncommon· #2725

First use appears c.

1370.