nick

1. A small cut in a surface.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."archaic

2. A small cut in a surface.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."dated

3. Senses connoting something small.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."

4. Senses connoting something small.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)."

5. Senses connoting something small.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."

6. (UK, Ireland, Commonwealth, colloquial) Often in the expressions in bad nick and in good nick: condition, state.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."CommonwealthIrelandUKcolloquial