The word "tic" is correct in written English.
It is often used to describe a sudden, repetitive movement or sound, typically associated with a neurological condition.
Example: "He had a nervous tic that made his eye twitch occasionally."
Alternatives: "Spasm" or "Twitch."
Each facial tic was analysed as potential evidence that Israel was about to crack.
That split-second follicular tic is a safety valve, and one of the secrets to Federer's success – of which there was more when Berdych struggled to compete.
As with every emotional tic in adulthood, the roots go back to our formative years.
As Gambino, Glover can explore his every behavioural tic, trait and hangup, as well as let great shafts of light on to everyone else's.
Is it possible that he's right, and everyone else is wrong?" and "Can he help having been born in Milwaukee?" and "Was the burden of potential too much for him?" The tic is distracting; if Mr Cunningham is intending to make a point about the character, he could do so with greater economy.
Shortly after becoming Tory leader, in 2006, Mr Cameron urged his colleagues to consider this tic the prime reason for their serial electoral failures: "While parents worried about child care, getting the kids to school, balancing work and family life, we were banging on about Europe".
The campaigners need big business as a tic-bird needs a wildebeest.
Dr Stojanovic and his colleague Joanna Macdonald have used this approach to build simple DNA-based circuits capable of playing tic-tac-toe (though they take about half an hour to make each move).Yannick Rondelez, a researcher in molecular programming at the University of Tokyo, is creating circuits in test tubes in a way that more closely resembles the operation of natural cells.
This manifests itself in incessant verbal and physical "tic-ing", an uncontrollable urge to blurt out nonsense phrases, touch surfaces and rearrange objects.
He called this "Poe-tic justice".
"I used to be a tic-tac man, shouting the odds.
