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.
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
Sessions run like clockwork and even rest periods are timed to the millisecond.
From The Guardian • Mar. 12, 2019
While Glastonbury’s main stages run like clockwork – the occasional act of God permitting – the same cannot be said of its smaller stages in the Green Futures field.
From Time • Jul. 7, 2014
Some, like McGeorge Bundy under John F. Kennedy or Colin Powell under Ronald Reagan, focus on making the interagency machinery run like clockwork.
From Slate • Jun. 5, 2013
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.
