Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. arrested.

1851		Bell’s Life in Sydney 25 Oct. 1/3: [headline] The Nicker Nicked.
1885		A. Griffiths Fast and Loose II 276: Madame Jobard is to send here as soon as they are nicked?
1893		P.H. Emerson Signor Lippo 82: I found my way back to Vestminster, got palled in with a lot more boys, done a bit of gonoffing or anything to get some posh, but it all got too hot, my pals got nicked, and I chucked it.
1895		J. Greenwood Behind A Bus 45: Well, Jenny, we are nicked.
1938		J. Curtis They Drive by Night 81: One breach of the Act, smallest bloody breach and we’re nicked. Very hot on us the police.
1956		‘Charles Raven’ Und. Nights 22: Fanlight’s been nicked, comes up at Marlborough Street, tomorrow.
1965		J. Orton Loot Act I: We wouldn’t have been nicked if you’d kept your mouth shut.
1973		Sun. Times Mag. 30 Sept. 36: When black youths get nicked Brother Herman gets somebody to go and bail them out.
1983		A. Payne ‘Willesden Suite’ Minder [TV script] 54: Bleeding Pongo’s been nicked.
1990		in D. Campbell That Was Business, This Is Personal 15: I got nicked with another guy syphoning petrol.
1999		Indep. Rev. 10 Aug. 7: A traffic warden yells out: ‘You’re nicked!’.
2000		J.J. Connolly Layer Cake 1: To get nicked on this rare occasion would slaughter me.
2004		R.G. Barrett Rosa Marie’s Baby (2013) [ebook] And besides getting nicked, if he did happen to find the paintings, the police would confiscate them.
2018-20		T. Thorne (ed.) ‘Drill Slang Glossary’ at Forensic Linguistic Databank 🌐 Nicked - detained, arrested.

2. accused.

1913

H.G. Van Campen ‘Life on Broadway’ in McClure’s Mag. Mar. 40/2: I know nothin’ of her habits, ’ceptin’ that the day she left the drawer was eighty cents shy, an’ I was nicked for it.

3. (UK prison) put on report to the governor for an infringement of prison rules.

1984

Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 790/2: late C.20.