tick-tack-toe

or tick-tack-too tic-tac-toe, tit-tat-toe

[ tik-tak-toh ]

noun
  1. a simple game in which one player marks down only X's and another only O's, each alternating in filling in any of the nine compartments of a figure formed by two vertical lines crossed by two horizontal lines, the winner being the first to fill in three marks in any horizontal, vertical, or diagonal row.

  2. a children's game consisting of trying, with the eyes shut, to bring a pencil down upon one of a set of circled numbers, as on a slate, the number touched being counted as a score.

Origin of tick-tack-toe

1
1865–70; imitative of sound, as of bringing a pencil down on slate; see ticktack

Words Nearby tick-tack-toe

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use tick-tack-toe in a sentence

  • We may be seen that way, but there's no use spending any more time here playing tick-tack-toe on that wood up there.

    Ralestone Luck | Andre Norton

British Dictionary definitions for tick-tack-toe

tick-tack-toe

tick-tack-too (ˌtɪktækˈtuː)

/ (ˌtɪktækˈtəʊ) /


noun
  1. US and Canadian a game in which two players, one using a nought, "O", the other a cross, "X", alternately mark one square out of nine formed by two pairs of crossed lines, the winner being the first to get three of his symbols in a row: Also called (in Britain and certain other countries): noughts and crosses

Origin of tick-tack-toe

1
C19: from ticktack (meaning: an obsolete variety of backgammon)

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012