Word Direct Answers

What does "nick" mean?

Nick: A notch cut into something; as: (a) A score for keeping an account; a reckoning. [Obs.] (b) (Print.) A notch cut crosswise in the shank of a type, to assist a compositor in placing it properly in the stick, and in distribution. W. Savage. (c) A broken or indented place in any edge or surface; nicks in china.

Additional senses

  1. 2.A particular point or place considered as marked by a nick; the exact point or critical moment. To cut it off in the very nick. Howell. This nick of time is the critical occasion for the gainger of a point. L'Estrange.
  2. 3.To make a nick or nicks in; to notch; to keep count of or upon by nicks; as, to nick a stick, tally, etc.
  3. 4.To mar; to deface; to make ragged, as by cutting nicks or notches in. And thence proceed to nicking sashes. Prior. The itch of his affection should not then Have nicked his captainship. Shak.
  4. 5.To suit or fit into, as by a correspondence of nicks; to tally with. Words nicking and resembling one another are applicable to different significations. Camden.
  5. 6.To hit at, or in, the nick; to touch rightly; to strike at the precise point or time. The just season of doing things must be nicked, and all accidents improved. L'Estrange.
  6. 7.To make a cross cut or cuts on the under side of (the tail of a horse, in order to make him carry ir higher).
  7. 8.To nickname; to style. [Obs.] For Warbeck, as you nick him, came to me. Ford.

Sources