Definition of "clockwork"
noun
usually uncountable, plural clockworks
The action of behaving mechanically in the manner of a clock.
Quotations
The mind feeds upon the body: pale sickness, and early decrepitude, overmaster even its spiritual essence. Too late it discovers that this earth is its prison, and not its home: the heart beats, and its pulses are the clockwork of wretchedness:...
1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “An Evening Alone”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], page 307