nick

See also: Nick

English

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /nɪk/
  • Audio (US)(file)
  • Homophone: Nick
  • Rhymes: -ɪk

Etymology 1

From a variation of nock. Compare German Knick (“a flaw, defect”); German knicken (“to crack”). Also partly from Middle English nicken, nikken (“to nod; wink”), an intensive form of Old English hnīgan (“to bend, bow down, incline, descend, decline, sink”), from Proto-Germanic *hnīganą, *hnīwaną (“to bow, tilt, slant, slope, incline”), from Proto-Indo-European *kneygʷʰ- (“to bend, bow”), from *ken- (“to press, pinch, kink”). Cognate with Old Frisian hnekka (“to nod”), Dutch nikken (“to nod”), German nicken (“to nod; kink”), Danish nikke (“to nod”), Swedish nicka (“to nod”). The sense "point in time", "point marked" is from a conflation of the "notch" and the "wink" (i.e. "moment") senses.

Noun

nick (plural nicks)

  1. A small cut in a surface.
    1. (now rare) A particular point or place considered as marked by a nick; the exact point or critical moment.
      in the nick of time
    2. (printing, dated) A notch cut crosswise in the shank of a type, to assist a compositor in placing it properly in the stick, and in distribution.
      (Can we find and add a quotation of W. Savage to this entry?)
  2. Meanings connoting something small.
    1. (cricket) A small deflection of the ball off the edge of the bat, often going to the wicket-keeper for a catch.
    2. (real tennis) The point where the wall of the court meets the floor.
    3. (genetics) One of the single-stranded DNA segments produced during nick translation.
  3. (archaic) A nixie, or water-sprite.
    • 1879, Viktor Rydberg, The Magic of the Middle Ages (p.201)
      […] imps, giants, trolls, forest-spirits, elves and hobgoblins in and on the earth; nicks, river-sprites in the water, fiends in the air, and salamanders in the fire.
  4. (Britain, slang) In the expressions in bad nick and in good nick: condition.
    The car I bought was cheap and in good nick.
    • 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, p. 11]”, in The New York Times‎:
      [F]urther south in Kent, there was St. Mildred, whose mother, 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.
  5. (Britain, law enforcement slang) A police station or prison.
    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.
Derived terms
Translations

Verb

nick (third-person singular simple present nicks, present participle nicking, simple past and past participle nicked)

  1. (transitive) To make a nick or notch in; to cut or scratch in a minor way.
    I nicked myself while I was shaving.
    1. To make a cross cut or cuts on the underside of (the tail of a horse, in order to make the animal carry it higher).
    2. To mar; to deface; to make ragged, as by cutting nicks or notches in.
      • Prior
        And thence proceed to nicking sashes.
      • Shakespeare
        The itch of his affection should not then / Have nicked his captainship.
  2. To suit or fit into, as by a correspondence of nicks; to tally with.
    • Camden
      Words nicking and resembling one another are applicable to different significations.
    1. To hit at, or in, the nick; to touch rightly; to strike at the precise point or time.
      • L'Estrange
        The just season of doing things must be nicked, and all accidents improved.
    2. To throw or turn up (a number when playing dice); to hit upon.
      • 1773, Oliver Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer:
        My old luck: I never nicked seven that I did not throw ames ace three times following.
    3. (transitive, cricket) to hit the ball with the edge of the bat and produce a fine deflection
  3. (transitive, Britain, slang) To steal.
    Someone's nicked my bike!
  4. (transitive, Britain, law enforcement slang) To arrest.
    The police nicked him climbing over the fence of the house he'd broken into.
Translations

Etymology 2

Noun

nick (plural nicks)

  1. (Internet) Clipping of nickname.
    a user's reserved nick on an IRC network
    • 1995, Donald Rose, Internet Chat quick tour
      Changes your nickname — the name by which other IRCers see and refer to you — to anything you'd like (but remember that nine characters is the maximum nick length).
    • 2014, Josh Datko, BeagleBone for Secret Agents
      Also, ERC, like Emacs, is extremely modular and flexible. It is, of course, a free software program, but there are also many existing modules from nick highlighting to autoaway that you can use.

Verb

nick (third-person singular simple present nicks, present participle nicking, simple past and past participle nicked)

  1. (obsolete, transitive) To nickname; to style.
    • Ford
      For Warbeck, as you nick him, came to me.

Anagrams

German

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /nɪk/
  • Rhymes: -ɪk

Verb

nick

  1. Imperative singular of nicken.
  2. (colloquial) First-person singular present of nicken.

Kashubian

Pronoun

nick

  1. nothing

Swedish

Pronunciation

  • audio(file)

Etymology 1

Noun

nick c

  1. nod (movement of the head to indicate agreement)
  2. header (in football)
Declension
Declension of nick 
Singular Plural
Indefinite Definite Indefinite Definite
Nominative nick nicken nickar nickarna
Genitive nicks nickens nickars nickarnas
Synonyms
  • (header): nickning c
  • (nod): nickning c
Derived terms

Etymology 2

From the English nickname

Noun

nick n

  1. (slang) nick, nickname
Declension
Declension of nick 
Singular Plural
Indefinite Definite Indefinite Definite
Nominative nick nicket nick nicken
Genitive nicks nickets nicks nickens
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