Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also tick up) to obtain or place on credit.

1672		Wycherley Love in a Wood I i: But Dapperwit is a Culley to none of them for he ticks.
1700		T. Brown Amusements Serious and Comical in Works (1744) III 21: This caveat did not exclude those that would tick upon wholesale.
1707		N. Ward London Terraefilius I 3: High Eating at Noon, a Whore and a Bottle at Night [...] till empty Pockets and a flaming Codpiece force him to Tick with a Son of Æsculapius [...] upon a Heathenish Catalogue of Pills, Powders, and Bolusses.
1715		S. Centlivre Gotham Election I i: Our Town has an Aversion for the Family of the Tickups; it is a Name very much hated, I assure you, an I might advise you, I’d change it into Ready Cash, ha, ha.
a.1729		R. Steele Correspondence II 477: I shall contrive to have a quarter beforehand, and never let family tick more for victuals, cloaths, or rent [F&H].
1764		Foote Lyar in Works (1799) I 302: Old Wilding. It is incumbent upon you to discharge your debt. Young Wilding. In college cant, I shall beg leave to tick a little longer.
1797		‘T.B. Jr’ Pettyfogger Dramatized II iv: Step into the Blue Bristles, and order a couple of pound of chops. — We must tick there to-day.
1803		‘A Pembrochian’ Gradus ad Cantabrigiam 133: To tick; to go on trust.
1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 174: Tick it up.
1901		W.A. Sun. Times (Perth) 25 Aug. 1/1: Parental orders have been sent to Kalgoorlie forbidding the ‘ticking up’ of champagne and oyster suppers.
1914		E. Wittmann ‘Clipped Words’ in DN IV:ii 138: tick, from ticket. As verb, to buy or take on trust.
1939		K. Tennant Foveaux 135: She was always worrying about food, a commodity that the rest of Plug Alley regarded as something to be borrowed from the neighbours or ‘ticked up’ at the shop.
1966		J. Holledge Great Aust. Gamble 48: He woke up that morning completely broke and ‘ticked up’ a block of ice when the ice-man called.
1967		‘Whisper All Aussie Dict.’ in Kings Cross Whisper (Sydney) xli 4/3: tick: To obtain credit.
1982		in Lowenstein & Hills Under Hook 29: If you was a regular at the pub you ticked your beer up.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 189/2: tick up v. to procure P119 goods on an IOU basis, usually from a fellow inmate who keeps various items ‘in stock’.

2. to grant someone credit; to place a debt on credit.

1775		K. O’Hara Two Misers I i: Bled so freely! but, no tick; no, no, the rooks would not tick.
1805		‘Jeremy Swell, Gent.’ Tailors’ Revolt 7: I’ll to the Apple Tree [...] For there they’ll tick, and put it on the slate.
1812		J. Bell Jr. (ed.) Rhymes of Northern Bards 272: His money being spent, they would tick no more.
1833		‘The ‘Hell’ Birds’ in Tommarroo Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) IV 332: But debts of honour must be paid, / They wouldn’t stand a ticking.
1848		Talfourd & Seymour Sir Rupert, the Fearless I i: Suppose you cease this spouting to propose / Some measure which may measure us for clothes / No tailor ’ll tick.
1864		B. Hemyng Eton School Days 206: You owe me thirty shillings, and I can’t tick any more.
1871		Cornhill Mag. Dec. 707: ‘Spankie, I want you to tick me,’ would say a young gentleman [...] ‘No, sir, I never tick’.
1946		(con. 1910s) J. Thompson Heed the Thunder (1994) 243: Well, if you’re getting worried, maybe I better not tick you any more.
1955		D. Niland Shiralee 33: Hanging lopsided from a tack [...] was the warning: A Clock Ticks But We Don’t.
1963–74		B. Humphries Barry McKenzie [comic strip] in Complete Barry McKenzie (1988) 52: I ticked it all up to Kev the Rev.
1997		N. Barlay Curvy Lovebox 131: Give us fuckin’ three hundred an’ I’ll tick the rest.