like clockwork

Predictably and dependably. Everything is going like clockwork, so we should be ready to start construction by the end of the month. The conference went like clockwork from beginning to end.

See also: clockwork, like

like clockwork

Also, regular as clockwork. With extreme regularity, as in Ruth arrives every Wednesday morning just like clockwork, or You can count on his schedule, which is regular as clockwork, or Their assembly line runs like clockwork. This idiom alludes to the mechanical and therefore very regular action of a clock. [Second half of 1600s]

See also: clockwork, like

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

like clockwork

COMMON

1. If something goes or runs like clockwork, it works very well and happens in exactly the way it is expected to. The journey there went like clockwork — flying out on Friday from Gatwick it took seven hours door-to-door. He soon had the household running like clockwork.

2. If someone does something like clockwork, they do it regularly, always at the same time. They would arrive like clockwork just before dawn. Every day at 3:00, like clockwork, he comes in here for a cup of coffee. Note: You can also say that someone does something, or that something happens, regular as clockwork. Every three years, regular as clockwork, the great Anne Tyler produces a new novel.

See also: clockwork, like

Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2012

like clockwork

1 very smoothly and easily, with no disruptions or problems. 2 with mechanical regularity.

See also: clockwork, like

Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017

like clockwork

With machinelike regularity and precision; perfectly: The project proceeded like clockwork.

See also: clockwork, like

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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References in periodicals archive

Whelan ran his Mass like clockwork, and God help the boy who was still sleepy, because the man knew our marks like they were chalked on the floor, and he expected us to be quick with the equipment of the Mass--glassware, towels, smoke.

Memoirs of an altar boy

That technology also holds promise to make the entire mortgage business run more like clockwork. And maybe the clock will even run on Internet time before too long.

It's Too Early

And for just under 5 hours, as the crew of the shuttle Columbia reeled out a satellite on the end of a 20-kilometer- long umbilical cord, the experiment in space went like clockwork. Designed to probe Earth's ionosphere and to test an innovative way of ge nerating electricity, the conducting tether swept through our planet's magnetic field at 8 km per second.

The unkindest cut: tethered satellite lost

Fraser said plans to help Britons caught in the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt had gone "like clockwork".

SIR HUMPHREY BRAGS ABOUT STAFF'S HANDLING OF CRISIS..BEFORE CHAOS

I'm not too old to remember the great Holland sides of 1974 and 1978 which finished runners-up and were labelled Clockwork Orange because of but their path to the last eight has been like clockwork with five wins.

Oranje running like clockwork towards final; WORLD CUP FIXIT

But what they do have is a gold-plated back catalogue to play, including She's So Modern, Like Clockwork, Rat Trap and I Don't Like Mondays.

The Rats are back without Bob