a strong linen or cotton fabric usually woven in stripes of colour; blue and pink with white being the most common. The name is derived from a word " tick," common in various forms to many languages, signifying a case or sheath.
[it] is used for mattresses, awnings and tents. In some qualities it is also used as a foundation for embroidery.
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
► uses
Uses:
I had beaten hemp, which there grows wild, and made of it a sort of ticking; this I filled with the feathers of several birds I had taken with springes made of Yahoos’ hairs, and were excellent food.
Jonathan Swift. Gulliver's Travels Into Several Remote Regions of the World (1726)
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My bed was a straw tick better than Jim's, which was a corn-shuck tick
Mark Twain. Huckleberry Finn.
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now and then a warm wind that blew from the river gently stirred the border of the tick awnings hanging from the doors of the public-houses.