Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)
Hide Quotations Hide Etymology
About this entry:
First published 1965 (SND Vol. VI). Includes material from the 1976 supplement.
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.
Quotation dates: 1832, 1898
[0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0]
†NICKS, v., n. Also nix.
I. v. To set something up as a mark and throw at it, to aim at something near (Rxb. 1825 Jam.). Vbl.n. nixin, a game in which ginger-bread cakes are placed on pieces of wood, and on payment of a charge a stick measuring about a yard long may be thrown at them, the thrower claiming as many cakes as are displaced (Ib.). Hence nixum, an upset, "knock-out."Slk. 1832 Fraser's Mag. (Sept.) 165–6:
I gaed away to help them to bury the auld roudess, Mrs. Torpin; but we hae gotten sic a nixum. They shall ken when they get me to bury an auld wife in a drift again. . . . Auld roudess! She has gotten a nixum.
II. n. Aim, in phr. to tak nicks at. Rxb.1898E. HamiltonMawkin xvi.:
Standing tirling at the door-pin, with Mistress Jennie taking nicks at us the while with her bit dags.
