in the nick

English[edit]

Naked.
Synonym: in the nip
- 1991, Knut Faldbakken, Insect Summer, Peter Owen Limited:
  And the two of you weren't swimming in the nick down at Mill Dam the other day, I suppose? 'No, we weren't exactly swimming...' You still got an eyeful of her in the altogether, though, didn't you?
- 2013 July 24, Maurice Gee, The Burning Boy (Penguin Award Winning Classics), Penguin Random House New Zealand Limited, →ISBN:
  Belinda might be sensible but could any child resist such a tale – Mrs Sangster swimming in the nick? She put on the togs, wishing these little freedoms were not denied her. They made her buttocks feel as though set in cement.
- 2015 June 1, Pamela Power, Ms Conception, Penguin Random House South Africa, →ISBN:
  “Why don't you just swim in the nick?” Nick smiles at this play on his name. “There's no one to see you. Except me, of course.” He waggles his eyebrows suggestively. I laugh and hand Dom to him. “Okay. Just hold Dom while I get my kit off.”
(obsolete) Synonym of in the nick of time
- 1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London, Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC:
  “Thank ye kindly, doctor,” says he. “You came in in about the nick, I guess, for me and Hawkins. And so it’s you, Ben Gunn!” he added. “Well, you’re a nice one, to be sure.”

2014 November 27, Tom Dalzell, Terry Victor, The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, Routledge, →ISBN, page 1980:
in the nick[:] naked NEW ZEALAND, 1998.
2005, Kerrin P. Rowe, Wordbook of Australian Idiom: Aussie Slang, Trafford Publishing, →ISBN, page 96:
nick[:] nude— 'We all went for a midnight swim in the nick'