clock is ticking | Idiomator

Meaning: (idiomatic,almost always preceded bytheand often followed byfor)Time isrunning out; adeadlineis approaching.Synonyms:clock is running,time is ticking,time is shortCoordinate terms:time is up,time is ripe,time is of the essenceNear-synonym:tick-tock(interjection)1922,E. Phillips Oppenheim, chapter 2, inThe Great Prince Shan:I have the feeling that even while theclock is tickingwe are moving on to terrible things.1986April 23,James Reston, “Washington The Ticking Clock”, inNew York Times, retrieved22 December 2015:Theclock is tickingfor Mikhail Gorbachev too. Of all the failures of political and economic theory in this century, the Soviet failure is the most spectacular.2006February 19, Alasdair Palmer, “‘We know the clock is ticking. Kidnap is a murder waiting to happen’”, inTelegraph, UK, retrieved22 December 2015:"We know theclock is ticking, and the longer it takes us to find the person who has been kidnapped, the less likely the case is to have a successful outcome."2015November 12,John Ibbitson, “Politics notebook:Clock is tickingfor Trudeau to resettle 25,000 refugees”, inGlobe and Mail, Canada, retrieved22 December 2015:Theclock is ticking. And with every tick, the Trudeau government’s goal of bringing 25,000 refugees from the Middle East to Canada by the end of the year grows more improbable.

Examples:

EN: The clock is ticking the hours away.
ES: El reloj marca las horas.
EN: Our hearts are face to face unashamed. The clock is ticking and there is no time to lose.
ES: Nuestros corazones cara a cara avergonzados los minutos pasan y no hay tiempo que perder.
EN: The clock is ticking.
ES: El reloj corre.
ES: El tiempo vuela.
ES: El reloj sigue corriendo.
ES: El reloj sigue corriendo.
ES: El reloj está corriendo.
EN: - The clock is ticking.
ES: El tiempo apremia.
EN: The clock is ticking and the merchants from the temple are there.
ES: El tiempo corre y ya están allí los mercaderes del templo.
EN: The clock is ticking away the last minutes of the game.
ES: Queda poco tiempo.
EN: The clock is ticking away and Francis is bleeding away.
ES: El reloj va corriendo y Francis se desangra. Se quedará sin sangre antes de que se pare el reloj.
EN: The clock is ticking and there isn't a minute to lose.
ES: El tiempo corre, no hay un minuto que perder.
EN: It was about five past twelve. Madame Redfern bids her husband a hurried farewell. The clock is ticking
ES: A las doce y cinco se despide de su marido porque los minutos corren
EN: I delayed this moment for as long as possible, but the clock is ticking, not for you, Lenoir, but it is ticking anyway!
ES: He retrasado este momento todo lo posible, pero las agujas del reloj giran, no las del suyo, Lenoir, pero giran de todas formas.
EN: The clock is ticking. It's almost time.
ES: El reloj sigue corriendo.
EN: The clock is ticking, I have to get jamming.
ES: El reloj está corriendo, tengo que enrollarme.
EN: Remember, your biological clock is ticking.
ES: Recuerda, según tu reloj biológico, es la hora.
EN: My biological clock is ticking ...
ES: Es la hora según mi reloj biológico...
EN: The clock is ticking away.
ES: el reloj esta avanzando.

Note: the examples for non latin scripts have a high likelihood of mistakes, we do not own any of this data and it is sourced from Wiktionary, the NLLB database and Opensubtitles. Please help us improve this by contributing correct examples. We will be working to fix this issue over time however it is a bigger issue due to the the difficulties in dealing with non latin scripts and grammatical structures(non-romantic/european languages have lower resources as well ).