run like clockwork
IdiomsExample Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
A wrist upgrade never hurts, especially if he’s the type who doesn’t always run like clockwork.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 12, 2026
Check-in and checkout usually run like clockwork: between 2 and 4 p.m. on the front end and around 11 a.m. or noon on the back end.
From New York Times • Feb. 18, 2020
He designed the site’s processes so it would run like clockwork, even in his absence.
From The Guardian • Apr. 15, 2019
Here’s the other: Even if the Rio Games, by some miracle, run like clockwork, the Summer Olympics once again will become just another contest in which the results are likely fiction.
From Seattle Times • Jul. 28, 2016
The official machinery of this private government strip also seems to run like clockwork.
From Zone Policeman 88; a close range study of the Panama canal and its workers by Franck, Harry Alverson
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.
