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Let me show you what makes life at this resort tick.

It's an introductory video that shows the behind the scenes of a resort. All the definitions I found from dictionary.cambridge.org don't fit in this context. What does "tick" mean in this context?

This is an extension of the onomatopoeic meaning of tick, as in the sound a clock makes: tick-tock. What makes someone or something tick is what makes them function, except this is generally even more metaphorical than just the tick being a metaphor. If you "know what makes Jeff tick", then you know how his mind works, how he will act, how to provoke him into doing what you want him to do, how to do things he will appreciate, and so on.

Essentially, it's a set phrase - "what makes ... tick". It refers to a deep and fundamental knowledge about how "..." works.

There are variations that go in different directions, of course. As fred2 noted in their answer, to "really make something tick" can be to make it work better, faster, more effectively. But to find out what "really makes someone/something tick" can be that, or can be a suggestion that a person has put on a false front and you're going to try to see "behind the mask", so to speak.

If something is "ticking over nicely", that's most directly a reference to an engine or other machine ticking over, which means running on idle - not doing anything in particular, but running. It's unclear exactly how we got that expression, whether it also comes from the noise of a clock, but I suspect so. Using that reference means something is functioning and continuing to function without any particular intervention. If it is "just about ticking over" it is barely continuing to function.

It is a common idiom, but checking Cambridge Dictionary, I can appreciate why you couldn't find it.

There are various idiomatic phrasal verbs that this usage is related to.

Things are ticking along.

The business is ticking over.

Both arise from the metaphor of an engine idling - 'ticking over', but not doing anything much. It also relates to the ticking of a clock as a metaphor for being 'alive', 'working', 'healthy'.

So

To really make something tick.

Has a a more positive sense of 'vibrant', 'lively'.

So the meaning of your sentence is:

Let me show you what makes life a this resort so lively.

The metaphor is a clock. To understand what makes a clock tick is to understand how a clock works, springs, cogs and so forth.

To understand what makes a person tick is to understand their motivations, the way they think, their biases and fears, and so forth.

To understand what makes "life at this resort tick" means to understand the things that make the events which constitute the "life" of the resort happen.

That may not necessarily mean the mechanical things like food, janitors, maids changing towels, but might mean what underlies the social events, or personal intrigue, or whatever constitutes the "life" of the resort, which is a metaphor in itself.

Replace the tick with any of the following words:

• work


• thrive


• move


• succeed


• survive

based on the circumstances.