Nick

How to spell nick

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce nick

What does nick mean?

1. nounA small cut, chip, or notch in a surface or edge.
2. verbTo make a small cut or notch in something.
3. verbTo steal something, especially something small.
4. verbTo arrest or catch someone, in British informal usage.

Nick in a sentence

• noun

  The razor left a tiny nick on his chin.

• verb

  Be careful not to nick the paintwork when you move the ladder.

• verb

  Someone tried to nick her phone on the crowded train.

• verb

  The police managed to nick the burglar as he climbed out of the window.

• noun

  There was a nick in the wooden table where the knife had slipped.

• verb

  A careless slip can nick the polished edge of the worktop.

Where does nick come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The origins of nick are genuinely murky, which is why the confidence here is only moderate. It appears in late Middle English around the fifteenth century with the sense of a small notch or groove cut into a surface, and it may be connected to the slightly earlier word 'nock', meaning the notch on an arrow or a bow that holds the string. Some scholars link it to similar words in Dutch and Low German for a notch or a snick, pointing to a broadly Germanic family of words for a sharp little cut. Over the centuries the noun spread into many figurative uses: the phrase 'in the nick of time' grew from the idea of a precise mark or notch on a tally stick that recorded an exact point. In British slang the verb later took on the colourful meanings of stealing and of arresting, and 'the nick' became a familiar word for a police station or prison, senses that remain very much alive today.

How the word is built

• nick (a single root word; no prefix or suffix)