nick
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: ball-games
biology
business
cricket
games
gaming
genetics
government
hobbies
law-enforcement
lifestyle
media
medicine
mining
natural-sciences
printing
publishing
sciences
sports
squash
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.
Inflected forms:
form: nicks
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: nicks
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: nicking
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: nicked
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: nicked
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: A small cut in a surface.
pos: noun
tags: archaic
examples: in the nick of time
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.
[…] 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.
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.
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!
gloss: A small cut in a surface.
pos: noun
tags: dated
examples: 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.
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.
gloss: Senses connoting something small.
pos: noun
examples: 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.
gloss: Senses connoting something small.
pos: noun
examples: 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.
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.
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).
gloss: Senses connoting something small.
pos: noun
examples: 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.
gloss: Often in the expressions in bad nick and in good nick: condition, state.
pos: noun
tags: Commonwealth
Ireland
UK
colloquial
examples: The car I bought was cheap and in good nick.
[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.
[…]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.
More unexpectedly, older tech and hardware stocks seem in decent nick, Mr Ives notes.
gloss: A police station or prison.
pos: noun
tags: Commonwealth
Ireland
UK
slang
examples: He was arrested and taken down to Sun Hill nick [police station] to be charged.
He’s just been released from Shadwell nick [prison] after doing ten years for attempted murder.
I recall too that the chats in the back of the [police] van weren't too bad as they dispatched me to the nick.
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.
“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.”
gloss: To make a nick or notch in; to cut or scratch in a minor way.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: I nicked myself while I was shaving.
This man pauses in his shaving to squint at the piece of paper again, razor hesitant, eye returning anxious but reluctant to the blurred letters. [...] He nicks himself and the tired blood trickles a moment, stops easily these days almost before the cotton-wool sticks.
gloss: To make a nick or notch in; to cut or scratch in a minor way.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: The itch of his Affection ſhould not then / Haue nickt his Captain-ſhip, at ſuch a point, / When halfe to halfe the world oppos'd, he being / The meered queſtion?
But, give him port and potent ſack, / From milkſop he ſtarts up Mohack; / Holds that the happy know no hours; / So through the ſtreets at midnight ſcowers, / Breaks watchmen's heads and chairmen's glaſſes, / And thence proceeds to nicking ſaſhes; […]
gloss: To make a nick or notch in; to cut or scratch in a minor way.
pos: verb
tags: rare
transitive
examples: The barbarous custom of docking and nicking the tail, and cutting the ears of horses, is too prevalent. [...] [I]n the loss of their tail, they find even a still greater inconvenience. During summer they are perpetually teazed with swarms of insects that either attempt to suck their blood or deposit their eggs in the rectum, which they have no means of lashing off; and in winter they are deprived of a necessary defence against the cold. [From the Boston Yankee.]
Nicking a horse has been generally believed to be attended with much difficulty, and to require great ingenuity and art to perform the operation. The nicking alone, is by far the easiest part, as the curing and pullying requires considerable attention and trouble. Nicking is an operation performed for the purpose of making a horse carry an elegant artificial tail, which adds much to his beauty and value.
gloss: To fit into or suit, as by a correspondence of nicks; to tally with.
pos: verb
tags: obsolete
transitive
examples: An Alluſion is as it were a dalliance or playing with words, like in ſound, vnlike in ſense, by changing, adding, or ſubtracting a letter or two; ſo that words nicking and reſembling one the other, are appliable to diffrent ſignifications.
gloss: To fit into or suit, as by a correspondence of nicks; to tally with.
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
obsolete
sometimes
transitive
examples: [I]t requires a Critical Nicety both of Wit, and of Judgment, to find out the Genius, or the Propenſions, of a Child, […] The Juſt Seaſon of Doing Things must be Nick'd, and All Accidents Obſerv'd and Improv'd; for Weak Minds are to be as Narrowly Attended, as Sickly Bodies: […]
gloss: To fit into or suit, as by a correspondence of nicks; to tally with.
pos: verb
tags: obsolete
transitive
examples: Two balls later, I nick one and it carries beautifully to Peter Bowler at first slip, a complete dolly catch, and he drops it.
gloss: To fit into or suit, as by a correspondence of nicks; to tally with.
pos: verb
tags: obsolete
transitive
examples: My old luck: I never nick'd ſeven that I did not throw ames ace three times following.
The points to nick each main have been mentioned before, and the table on dice will show how many chances there are to throw each of these points with 2 dice, which together form the numerator, and 36 (being all the chances on 2 dice) the denominator of the fraction that expresses the probability. If 5 is the main, 5 will be the only nick, and the chances to throw 5 being 4, ⁴⁄₃₆ is the probability, which is 8 to 1 against nicking 5, and the same against nicking 9.
Tom Moor was fond of gaming, and often lost large sums of money; finding his business neglected in his absence, he had a small hazard table set up in one corner of his dining-room, and invited a party of his friends to play at it. [...] [O]ne of them being a constant winner, the others would say, "Damn it, how he nicks them."
gloss: To make a cut at the side of the face.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: A practice then prevailed of blasting without nicking the side of the place which still continues and of conducting the current of air too far by means of brattice, to both of which practices I raised a strong objection. They admitted their inability to make the men nick the coal as they formerly did and thought the application of brattice could not be properly defined, but that it should be left to the discretion of the manager of each particular mine as to the distance openings should be made apart between the intake and return air courses.
gloss: To steal.
pos: verb
tags: Commonwealth
Ireland
UK
colloquial
transitive
examples: Someone’s nicked my bike!
As I'm on the ground, my bat and one of the stumps are grabbed out of my hands. [...] At that point, I look up and see Adrian [Dale] – with two stumps in his hands! Hugh [Morris] has given him one and his brother Gary, who is a policeman, has seen the bloke who nicked it off me and wrestled it off him and given [it] to Adrian. He didn't get my bat back, though.
gloss: To arrest.
pos: verb
tags: Commonwealth
Ireland
UK
slang
transitive
examples: The police nicked him climbing over the fence of the house he’d broken into.
Flick knives were pulled on us, and the group demanded we give them all our money, and passports and everything else we had. [...] They [the police] had nicked the knife gang, (who had stayed there, beating the shit out of Nick), and found our passports.
[...] I was always getting nicked when I was a junkie, so I've had my fair share of skirmishes with the law.
Related words: pernickety
Derived words: in bad nick
in good nick
in the nick
in the nick of time
nickase
nick-bent
nick of time
nick point
nickstick
nick-time
nitch
on the nick
nickable
nick off
nick up
nicker
nicking
Translations:
lang: Afrikaans
word: snytjie
lang: Czech
word: zářez
lang: Czech
word: vrub
lang: Finnish
word: naarmu
lang: Galician
word: borcela
lang: Galician
word: dente
lang: Galician
word: galla
lang: Galician
word: mela
lang: German
word: Schramme
lang: Italian
word: tacca
lang: Italian
word: intaccatura
lang: Māori
word: tongari
lang: Māori
word: tokari
lang: Māori
word: pakini
lang: Russian
word: щерби́на
roman: ščerbína
lang: Russian
word: зазу́брина
roman: zazúbrina
lang: Slovak
word: zárez
lang: Slovak
word: štrbina
lang: Spanish
word: mella
lang: Turkish
word: çentik
lang: Finnish
word: raapaista
lang: Finnish
word: naarmuttaa
lang: Galician
word: ataniscar
lang: Galician
word: ermelar
lang: Galician
word: esboucar
lang: Galician
word: esfanicar
lang: Italian
word: intaccare
lang: Russian
word: надре́зать
roman: nadrézatʹ
lang: Russian
word: поре́зать
roman: porézatʹ
lang: Spanish
word: mellar