nick
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /nɪk/
homophone: nic
homophone: Nick
rhymes: -ɪk
Forms: form: nicks
Etymology: The noun is derived from Late Middle English nik (“notch, tally; nock of an arrow”). Its further etymology is unknown; a connection with nock (“notch in a bow to hold the bowstring; notch at the rear of an arrow that fits the bowstring; cleft in the buttocks”) has not been clearly established.
The verb appears to be derived from the noun, though the available evidence shows that some of the verb senses predate the noun senses. No connection with words in Germanic languages such as Danish nikke (“to nod”), Middle Dutch nicken (“to bend; to bow”) (modern Dutch knikken (“to nod”)), Middle Low German nicken (“to bend over; to sink”), Middle High German nicken (“to bend; to depress”) (modern German nicken (“to nod”)), Middle Low German knicken (“to bend; to snap”) (modern German knicken (“to bend; to break”), Old Frisian hnekka (“to nod”), and Swedish nicka (“to nod”), has been clearly established.
Senses: examples: text: in the nick of time
text: When I imagin man fraughted with al the commodities may be wiſhed; […] I finde him to ſinke vnder the burthen of his eaſe, and perceive him altogether vnable to beare ſo pure, ſo conſtant, and ſo vniverſall a ſenſualitie. Truely he flies when he is even vpon the nicke, and naturally haſtneth to eſcape it, as from [a] ſtep whereon he cannot ſtay or containe himſelfe, and feareth to ſinke into it.
ref: 1603, Michel de Montaigne, “We Taste Nothing Purely”, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC, page 389:
text: […] ſuffred the fatall threed to bee ſpunne out to that length for ſome politique reſpects, and then to cut it off in the very nicke.
ref: 1640, I. H. [i.e., James Howell], “A Character of Lvrana”, in ΔΕΝΔΡΟΛΟΓΊΑ [DENDROLOGIA]. Dodona’s Grove, or, The Vocall Forrest, London: […] T[homas] B[adger] for H. Mosley [i.e., Humphrey Moseley] […], →OCLC, page 62:
text: He felt that he was restored to consciousness in the right nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding a conference with the second messenger despatched to him through Jacob Marley's intervention.
ref: 1843 December 19, Charles Dickens, “Stave Three. The Second of the Three Spirits.”, in A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC, page 74:
text: Here ended, then, / Progress this way. When, in the very nick / Of giving up, one time more, came a click / As when a trap shuts – you're inside the den!
ref: 1856, Robert Browning, “‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came.’”, in Men and Women, author’s edition, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC, stanza 29, page 104:
glosses: A small cut in a surface.
A particular place or point considered as marked by a nick; the exact point or critical moment.
examples: text: A nick is a hollow cast crossways in the shanks of types, to make a distinction readily between differnt sorts and sizes; and to enable the compositor to perceive quickly the bottom of the letter as it lies in the case, when composing; as nicks are always cast on that side of the shank on which the bottom of the face of the letter is placed. A great deal of inconvenience frequently arises, owing to the founders casting different founts of types with a similar nick in each.
ref: 1841, William Savage, “NICK”, in A Dictionary of the Art of Printing, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC, page 543:
text: The types are of the usual thickness and height. In the centre of each type, in the front, is a deep nick of a dovetail shape, which fits upon a metal edge, so that the type cannot be displaced. But of 111 letters which are required in the fount, each letter has two, three, or four other nicks cut at right angles, the nicks of no one letter being the same as another.
ref: 1862, International Exhibition, 1862. Jurors’ Reports, London: Bell and Daldy, […], →OCLC, class XXVIII, section C (Plate, Letterpress, and Other Modes of Printing), page 3:
topics: media
printing
publishing
glosses: A small cut in a surface.
A notch cut crosswise in the shank of a type, to assist a compositor in placing it properly in the stick, and in distribution.
examples: text: Just as a judge may mistakenly believe in the credibility of a clever liar, thereby reaching an 'incorrect decision', an umpire dealing with the blur of a fast bowler and listening for a nick of the bat, or lifting his eyes quickly from the bowler's front foot to follow the flight and pitch of the ball to determine if the batter is out LBW [leg before wicket], can easily be mistaken.
ref: 2005, David Fraser, “The Man in White is Always Right (but He is Not Always Neutral)”, in Cricket and the Law: The Man in White is Always Right, Abingdon, Oxfordshire; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 107:
topics: ball-games
cricket
games
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: Senses connoting something small.
A small deflection of the ball off the edge of the bat, often going to the wicket-keeper for a catch.
examples: text: Analysis of the effect of temperature on the polymerization reaction with nicked and gapped DNA substrates in Mn²⁺ (8) [...] reveals identical values of activation energy (Eₐ) and Q₁₀, indicating that the frequency of productive interactions of polymerase β with 3′-hydroxyl termini at nicks and gaps is indistinguishable and suggesting that localized destabilization of the 5′-terminated DNA strand at the nick site does not contribute significantly to the rate-determining step(s) of the synthetic reaction.
ref: 1981, David Korn, Paul A. Fisher, Teresa S.-F. Wang, “Mechanisms of Catalysis of Human DNA Polymerases α and β”, in Waldo E. Cohn, editor, Progress in Nucleic Acid Research and Molecular Biology, volume 26 (DNA: Multiprotein Interactions), New York, N.Y.: Academic Press, →ISBN, page 66:
text: The double-stranded insert and linearized vector are denatured, and the resulting single strands of DNA anneal with their overlapping ends and extend using each other as a template to form double-stranded circular plasmids with only two nicks, one on each single strand. [...] Lastly, the nicks are covalently closed upon transformation into E. coli using its natural repair processes.
ref: 2015, Lesley-Ann Giddings, David J. Newman, “Activating the Expression of Natural Product Biosynthetic Gene Clusters”, in Bioactive Compounds from Extremophiles: Genomic Studies, Biosynthetic Gene Clusters, and New Dereplication Methods (SpringerBriefs in Microbiology), Cham, Switzerland; Heidelberg: Springer, →DOI, →ISBN, →ISSN, section 2.2 (Heterologous Expression), page 13:
text: The nick translation process is simply a replication of DNA in vitro with DNA polymerase I (Klenow fragment) and radioactive nucleotide, which becomes incorporated into the duplicated DNA at a nick (break).
ref: 2015, Byong H. Lee, “Concepts and Tools for Recombinant DNA Technology”, in Fundamentals of Food Biotechnology, 2nd edition, Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, section 2.2.3 (Purpose of Gene Cloning), pages 172–173:
topics: biology
genetics
medicine
natural-sciences
sciences
glosses: Senses connoting something small.
One of the single-stranded DNA segments produced during nick translation.
examples: text: Spin is a major feature of real tennis – because of it, some of the slowest shots can be the hardest to return. [...] Strokes played into the "nick" (the corner of the floor and the wall) and aggressive drives into the dedans, the winning gallery, or the grille are unreturnable.
ref: 2013 September, “Racket Sports”, in Ray Stubbs (editorial consultant), Ed Wilson, editors, The Sports Book: The Sports, the Rules, the Tactics, the Techniques, 4th edition, London: Dorling Kindersley, →ISBN, page 189:
topics: ball-games
games
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
squash
glosses: Senses connoting something small.
The point where the wall of the court meets the floor.
qualifier: real tennis
examples: text: The car I bought was cheap and in good nick.
text: [F]urther south in Kent, there was St. Mildred, whose mother [Domne Eafe], in 670, founded the minster that still stands there in good nick, with nine nuns who are an ever-present help in trouble to all religions and none.
ref: 2014 July 20, Jane Gardam, “Give us a bishop in high heels [print version: ‘Give us a high-heeled bishop’, International New York Times, 22 July 2014, page 11]”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 07 Nov 2015:
text: […]considering they've abused their bodies with everything from M and G to crystal meth over the course of the last day or so, some longer, they look in pretty good nick.
ref: 2017, James Wharton, Something for the Weekend, Biteback Publishing, →ISBN:
text: More unexpectedly, older tech and hardware stocks seem in decent nick, Mr Ives notes.
ref: 2022 May 14, “Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place”, in The Economist, →ISSN:
glosses: Often in the expressions in bad nick and in good nick: condition, state.
examples: text: He was arrested and taken down to Sun Hill nick [police station] to be charged.
text: He’s just been released from Shadwell nick [prison] after doing ten years for attempted murder.
text: I recall too that the chats in the back of the [police] van weren't too bad as they dispatched me to the nick.
ref: 2014, Russell Brand, “I am an Anarchist-a”, in Revolution, New York, N.Y.: Ballantine Books, →ISBN, page 81:
text: Poor Billy, he got seven years and he died in the nick in Liverpool in January 1958. Tragedy, he was such a good man, the best. He had a big funeral back in Clerkenwell. Eva went to it. I was in the nick down south at the time.
ref: 2019 June 6, Frankie Fraser, James Morton, Mad Frank's Diary: The Confessions of Britain’s Most Notorious Villain, Random House, →ISBN:
text: “They say he's a friend of Stuart's who he met in the nick down south. No one in Brisbane knows him.” “Not that anyone would admit to it anyway.”
ref: 2021 March 23, William Stokes, The Riddle Exposed:: The Whiskey Firebombing's Link to the McCulkin Family Murders, Interactive Publications, →ISBN, page 80:
topics: government
law-enforcement
glosses: A police station or prison.
Derived terms: in the nick
in the nick of time
nickase
nick-bent
nick of time
nick point
nickstick
nick-time
nitch
on the nick