1. The mechanism or works of a clock.
1662. S. P., Acc. Latitude Men, in Phenix (1708), II. 509. The Farmer … desir’d this Artificer to show him the Nature of Clockwork, and what was requisite to make up a perfect Clock.
1815. J. Smith, Panorama Sci. & Art, I. 374. The term clock-work, originally imported those wheels, pinions, and other mechanism, which constituted the striking part, or what was formerly called the clock part of a movement for measuring time…. But at present … the larger movements, whether they strike or not, are called clocks.
b. transf. Mechanism similar to that of a clock, wheels set in motion by weights or springs.
1712. Arbuthnot, John Bull (1755), 17. You look like a puppet moved by clock-work.
1716. Lady M. W. Montagu, Lett., I. xiv. 49. A large cabinet full of curiosities of clockwork … one of which … was a craw-fish.
1756–7. trans. Keysler’s Trav., III. 263. A silver triumphal car … which moves by clock-work about the room.
1874. Knight, Dict. Mech., I. 572/1. Clock-work has been applied to lamps and to gas-burners to light them at a specific prearranged time.
1878. D. D. Porter, in N. Amer. Rev., CXXVII. 215. The torpedo was arranged to go off by clock-work.
c. with reference to the automatic and mechanical nature of the action, or its unvarying regularity; hence such phrases as like clock-work, regular as clock-work, etc.
1679. J. Goodman, Penitent Pard., I. ii. (1713), 22. Their Religion was a kind of clock-work … moving in a certain order, but without life or sense.
1789. H. Walpole, Reminisc., vii. 29. The king’s last years passed as regularly as clock-work.
1799. Southey, Nondescripts, Dancing Bear. He would have tortured my poor toes To minuet grace, and made them move like clock-work In musical obedience.
1824. Miss Mitford, Village, Ser. I. (1863), 194. This jewel of a valet, this matchless piece of clock-work.
1849. Hare, Par. Serm., II. 215. Acting together without any jarring, going, as the phrase is, by clockwork.
1872. ‘Mark Twain,’ Innoc. Abr., xii. 107. In France, all is clockwork, all is order.
2. fig.
a. 1628. Preston, Serm. Bef. His Majestie (1630), 18. In this curious clocke-worke of religion, every pin and wheele that is amisse distempers all.
1657. T. Jordan, Tricks of Youth, Prol. Lest I betray The Plot, and show the clockwork of the play.
1710. Berkeley, Princ. Hum. Knowl., § 60. The clockwork of nature … is so wonderfully fine and subtle.
1768–74. Tucker, Lt. Nat. (1852), II. 84. The play of vegetative and vital clock-works.
3. a. attrib. or adj. (rarely as predicative adj.): Of or like clock-work; automatic, mechanically regular. b. comb., as clockwork-like adj.
a. 1764. Lloyd, To G. Colman, Poet. Wks. 1774, I. 116. A kind of clock-work talking.
1780. Cowper, Table Talk, 529. The clockwork tintinnabulum of rhyme.
1824. Miss Ferrier, Inher., II. vii. 41. We are a very plain, quiet, old-fashioned family—quite clock-work in our ways and hours.
1847. Tennyson, Princess, Prol. 71. Round the lake A little clock-work steamer paddling plied.
1861. Sat. Rev., 7 Dec., 583/1. A pattern of clock-work punctuality and concentrated energies.
