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Synonyms

clock in

Idioms  

  1. Begin work, as in She clocked in late again. Also, clock out, end work, as in Please wait for me; I forgot to clock out. The allusion here is to punching a time clock, a device that punches the time on a card to record when an employee arrives and departs. [Late 1800s]

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

"Around 200 people have worked tirelessly around the clock in searching for this beautiful little girl who went missing five days ago," Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro said.

From BBC • Apr. 30, 2026

Celebrities including Kim Kardashian, Rihanna and Taylor Swift make up a handful of the self-made women billionaires, though they tend to clock in on the lower end of the billionaire scale.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 21, 2026

Most of them clock in at around 35 minutes, although the latest season premiere runs just over an hour.

From Salon • Feb. 7, 2026

He earned his PhD in 2006 from the Graduate School of Science at Nagoya University, where he studied the circadian clock in cyanobacteria.

From Science Daily • Jan. 13, 2026

"It's on the huge mission clock in the center screen."

From "The Martian" by Andy Weir

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.