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in the nick of time

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*in the (very) nick of time
Fig. just in time; at the last possible instant; just before it's too late. (*Typically: arrive ~; get there ~; happen ~; reach something ~; Save someone ~.) The doctor arrived in the nick of time. The patient's life was saved. I reached the airport in the very nick of time and made my flight.
See also: nick, time

in the nick of time
at the last possible moment
Usage notes: A nick was a mark on a stick which was used in the past to measure time.
We got there just in the nick of time. A minute later and she'd have left.
See also: nick, time

(just) in the nick of time
at the last possible moment A man walking his dog saw her fall into the river and pulled her out just in the nick of time.
See also: nick, time


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The doctor came in the nick of time, and soon brought her to.
It came into my mind in the nick of time, how Columbus, or Cortez, or one of those people, played an eclipse as a saving trump once, on some savages, and I saw my chance.
She was horrified to think how near she had come to being guilty herself; she had been saved in the nick of time by a revival in the colored Methodist Church, a fortnight before, at which time and place she "got religion.
 
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