nick v.3
to avoid, to slip away, to leave on the spur of the moment; often as nick away, nick down/down to etc.
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Heart of Mid-Lothian (1883) 219: It’s d---d hard, when three words of your mouth would give the girl the chance to nick Moll Blood, that you make such scrupling about rapping to them. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Little Larrikin 274: Trying to induce the driver of the motor, for whom he had a friendship, to promise at the end of the journey to ‘nick away and come too’ [OED]. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Apr. 24/1: I’ve got no use f’ sobs an’ sighs, / So, Sorrow, nick away! | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | (con. WWI) Somme Mud 86: Nick along and ask the officers to come to me. [Ibid.] 165: I [...] was just about to nick away [...] when the quack returned with a big dish of red-hot stew. | |
| Capricornia (1939) 449: The jonns! [...] Quick — nick over to the tank! | |
| Love me Sailor 107: Old Joe jabbed his broken stemmed pipe [...] ‘I just nicked in fer a draw . . .’. | |
| Jimmy Brockett 135: I nicked away early this night because I remembered that nothing pleased Sadie more than flowers. | |
| Big Smoke 121: Nick around to 18, Fletcher Street, tomorrow morning. | |
| Bobbin Up (1961) 226: Hurry up then luv and I’ll nick over next. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Hang On a Minute, Mate (1963) 32: We might nick up and see him. | |
| With Hooves of Brass 112: Dithering and frigging about instead of nicking into the scrub with her. | |
| Barry McKenzie [comic strip] in Complete Barry McKenzie (1988) 14: What say you and me nick in the nearest old English inn and sink a few swift ones? | |
| Bunch of Ratbags 81: Terry, nick back and lay the bikes on the grass. | |
| Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 76/1: nick away to leave, usually surreptitiously or quickly. [...] nick over to visit, usually without warning. | |
| Filth 126: Gus decides to nick into Crawford’s while I keep shoatie. | |
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988]. | |
| Peepshow [ebook] Hopefully he was nicking to the car for some condoms. | |
| Sucked In 106: Red had refrained from nicking off with my last half-dozen cans of beer. | |
| me-stepmums-too-fuckin-hot-mate at www.fakku.net 🌐 She nicked off or something? |
In phrases
(Aus.) to run off.
| Drum. | |
| DSUE (8th edn) 790/2: C.20. |
to alert someone to the approach of an authority.
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | (con. 1940s) Borstal Boy 172: Break up quick if we give the nick. |
(Irish) to keep a lookout.
| Quare Fellow (1960) Act I: Have a quiet burn there before the screw comes round. We’ll keep nick. | |
| (con. 1940s) Borstal Boy 299: Tell that reception to keep the nick. | |
| Lore and Lang. of Schoolchildren (1977) 399: In Dublin he is either [...] ‘keeping nicko’. | |
| Smokey Hollow 101: All they could do was turn up the radio full blast and continue smoking rolled-up brown paper fags, taking turns to keep nikko for their mother. |
(orig. Aus.) to leave, to depart, to go from one place to another.
| My Brilliant Career 258: Just when the fun commences you have to nick off home and milk. | |
| Capricornia (1939) 372: Get off home — go on, I tell you — nick off — both you! | |
| It’s Harder for Girls 50: If we’re not going to have him any more what about nicking off before he gets here? | |
| Big Smoke 76: Nick off quick, you worm, before old Birdie gets you. | |
| Nil Carborundum (1963) Act II: McKendrick knows about me nicking off yes’day. | |
| Barry McKenzie [comic strip] in Complete Barry McKenzie (1988) 87: I just got to nick out the gents for a few jiffs. | |
| Holy Smoke 9: They just sit around the camp [...] wishin’ to hell he’d nick orf out of it. | |
| Puberty Blues 1: Things like have sex, smoke cigarettes, nick off from school, go to the drive-in, take drugs, and go to the beach. | |
| GBH 3: ‘I’ll nick off down there and take advantage of your kind offer’. | |
| Traveller’s Tool 79: Every time a business colleague nicked off in mid T-bone through the swing door for a quick slash or a technicolour yawn. | |
| Vic Reeves Big Night Out n.p.: She hath nicked off, son. | |
| Banshee and Bullocky 30: Ah, nick off, Martha, an’ give ’im a go. | |
| Guardian Rev. 31 Mar. 12: Was it that he left his second wife and nicked off to Switzerland with a girl half his age? | |
| (con. 1945–6) Devil’s Jump (2008) 267: I thought it best [...] that Mavis and me and the little bloke nick off for a while. |