"nicker" - Word of the Day from the OED

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nicker, n.2

DRAFT REVISION June 2010

Brit. /nk/, U.S. /nkr/  [< NICK v.² + -ER suffix¹. In sense 3 probably partly < NICKER n.³
  In quot. 1669 at sense 1, with allusion to the proverbial phrase ‘the biter bit’ (see BITER n. 2).] 

    1. A person who cheats at gaming. Obs. rare.

1669 (title) The nicker nicked; or, the cheats of gaming discovered. 1674 C. COTTON Compl. Gamester xxx. 170 Four (called by the Tribe of Nickers little Dick-Fisher.

    2. A person who fits a thing neatly. Obs. rare ¹.

1676 A. MARVELL Mr. Smirke sig. K3^v, Yet I am not neither one of the most credulous nickers or applyers of natural events to humain transactions.

    3. A member of a band of hooligans active in London in the early 18th cent., who made a practice of breaking windows by throwing copper coins at them. Now hist.

1716 J. GAY Trivia III. 74 His scatter'd Pence the flying Nicker flings, And with the Copper Show'r the Casement rings. 1849 T. B. MACAULAY Hist. Eng. I. iii. 361 At a later period arose the Nicker, the Hawcubite, and the yet more dreaded name of Mohawk. 1886 M. E. BRADDON Mohawks ix, The Flying Post described how the Nickers had broken all Mr. Topsparkle's windows with halfpence. 1895 E. C. BREWER Dict. Phrase & Fable (new ed.) 589/1 The succession of these London pests after the Restoration was in the following order: The Muns, the Tityré Ts, the Hectors, the Scourers, the Nickers, then the Hawkubites..and then the Mohocks.

    4. A person who or thing which nicks or cuts something.

    a. A person who nicks horses' tails. Obs.

1810 Sporting Mag. 35 263 The defendant's witnesses, whom Mr. Serjeant Pell..described as croppers, dockers, nickers and trimmers. 1859 Harper's Mag. May 797/2 A close inspection showed that the cut which the nicker had given his tail was not yet quite healed.

    b. Woodworking. That part of a centre bit which cuts the circular outline of the hole to be made by the tool.

1846 C. HOLTZAPFFEL Turning & Mech. Manip. II. 541 A thin shearing point or nicker, that cuts through the fibres like the point of a knife. 1865 Routledge's Mag. for Boys June 353 The nicker leads or prepares the way for the cutter throughout the entire depth of the hole. 1947 H. E. KING School Certificate Woodwork vi. 63 Boring Bits... The router and nicker are sharpened on the inside only. 1988 R. MCMULLAN Macmillan Dict. Building 34/2 [The centre bit] has a central point and two side cutters or nickers.

    c. Telegr. A recording apparatus which makes nicks in a strip of paper. Obs. rare.

1871 Echo 2 Feb., Professor Morse's printing nickers and embossers.

    5. colloq. (chiefly Brit.). A person who steals something; a thief. Freq. with preceding noun.

1909 Chatterbox 202/2 Common shore-thieves, or ‘nickers’, who are always present in our big seaport towns. 1988 Sunday Times (Nexis) 18 Sept., Buster Edwards..goes from nappy nicker at Mothercare to a trained member of a gang. 1989 Daily Tel. (Nexis) 3 Aug. 6 Can we really approve of that nicker of picnic baskets, Yogi Bear?

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