clock-watching

1. 1.

   paying excessive attention to the clock (in anticipation of stopping work)

   Broaderattention

Questions about clock-watching

What does clock-watching mean?

clock-watching means "paying excessive attention to the clock (in anticipation of stopping work)".

How many syllables are in clock-watching?

clock-watching has 3 syllables and divides as cloc-k-wat-ching under the regular spelling rules. It is not in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, so that comes from how the word is written rather than from a recorded pronunciation, and no stress or phonetic transcription is claimed for it.

Is clock-watching a common word?

clock-watching is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.