tick off（v.）
verbal phrase, by 1915, "to reprimand, scold" (in a letter of Wilfred Owen); perhaps reflecting World War I military bureaucracy sense: a soldier "marked off" from a list as dismissed or ineligible. The verbal phrase tick off in accountancy, etc., "make a mark beside an item on a sheet with a pencil, etc.," often indicating a sale, is attested by 1881, from tick (n.2) in the sense of "small mark or dot." Tick (v.) "mark off a name or item on a list" is attested by 1854.
The meaning "to annoy" is recorded by 1971 and is perhaps independent (pissed off "annoyed" is from World War II).
The verbal phrase tick off had earlier described what a telegraph instrument does when it receives a message (1873), what a clock does in marking the passage of time (1777), enumerating on one's fingers (1899).
该词起源时间：1915年