Prick vs Nick - What's the difference?

In obsolete terms the difference between prick and nick

is that prick is to dress; to prink; usually with up while nick is to nickname; to style.

In transitive terms the difference between prick and nick

is that prick is to make acidic or pungent while nick is to mar; to deface; to make ragged, as by cutting nicks or notches in.

As a proper noun Nick is

a diminutive of the male given name Nicholas.

prick

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) prik, prikke, from (etyl) prica, . Pejorative context came from prickers, or witch-hunters.

Noun

(en noun)

A small hole or perforation, caused by piercing.

An indentation or small mark made with a pointed object.

(obsolete) A dot or other diacritical mark used in writing; a point.

(obsolete) A tiny particle; a small amount of something; a jot.

A small pointed object.

* Shakespeare

Pins, wooden pricks , nails, sprigs of rosemary.

* Bible, Acts ix. 5

It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks .

The experience or feeling of being pierced or punctured by a small, sharp object.

I felt a sharp prick as the nurse took a sample of blood.

* A. Tucker

the pricks of conscience

(slang, vulgar) The penis.

(slang, pejorative) Someone (especially a man or boy) who is unpleasant, rude or annoying.

(now, historical) A small roll of yarn or tobacco.

The footprint of a hare.

(obsolete) A point or mark on the dial, noting the hour.

* Shakespeare

the prick of noon

(obsolete) The point on a target at which an archer aims; the mark; the pin.

* Spenser

they that shooten nearest the prick

Derived terms

* pricker * prickle * prickly * pricktease * prickteaser

Etymology 2

From (etyl) .

Verb

(en verb)

To pierce or puncture slightly.

John hardly felt the needle prick his arm when the adept nurse drew blood.

To form by piercing or puncturing.

to prick holes in paper

to prick a pattern for embroidery

to prick the notes of a musical composition

(Cowper)

(dated) To be punctured; to suffer or feel a sharp pain, as by puncture.

A sore finger pricks .

To incite, stimulate, goad.

* (rfdate), (Shakespeare), (Two Gentlemen of Verona) , ii. 7.

My duty pricks me on to utter that.

To affect with sharp pain; to sting, as with remorse.

* Bible, Acts ii. 37

Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart.

* Tennyson

I was pricked with some reproof.

(archaic) To urge one's horse on; to ride quickly.

(Milton)

* 1590 , (Edmund Spenser), (The Faerie Queene) , III.1:

At last, as through an open plaine they yode, / They spide a knight that towards them pricked fayre [...].

* 1881 , :

Indeed, it is a memorable subject for consideration, with what unconcern and gaiety mankind pricks on along the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

(transitive, chiefly, nautical) To mark the surface of (something) with pricks or dots; especially, to trace a ship’s course on (a chart).

(nautical, obsolete) To run a middle seam through the cloth of a sail. (The Universal Dictionary of the English Language, 1896)

To make acidic or pungent.

(Hudibras)

To become sharp or acid; to turn sour, as wine.

To aim at a point or mark.

(Hawkins)

To fix by the point; to attach or hang by puncturing.

to prick a knife into a board

* Sandys

The cooks prick it [a slice] on a prong of iron.

(Isaac Newton)

(obsolete) To mark or denote by a puncture; to designate by pricking; to choose; to mark.

* Francis Bacon

Some who are pricked for sheriffs.

* Sir Walter Scott

Let the soldiers for duty be carefully pricked off.

* Shakespeare

Those many, then, shall die: their names are pricked .

To make sharp; to erect into a point; to raise, as something pointed; said especially of the ears of an animal, such as a horse or dog; and usually followed by up .

* Dryden

The courser pricks up his ears.

(obsolete) To dress; to prink; usually with up .

(farriery) To drive a nail into (a horse's foot), so as to cause lameness.

(Webster 1913)

nick

English

(wikipedia nick)

Noun

(en noun)

A small cut in a surface.

# A particular point or place considered as marked by a nick; the exact point or critical moment.

in the nick of time

#*, II.20:

Truely he flies when he is even upon the nicke , and naturally hasteneth to escape it, as from a step whereon he cannot stay or containe himselfe, and feareth to sinke into it.

#* Howell

to cut it off in the very nick

# (printing, dated) A notch cut crosswise in the shank of a type, to assist a compositor in placing it properly in the stick, and in distribution.

Meanings connoting something small.

# (cricket) A small deflection of the ball off the edge of the bat, often going to the wicket-keeper for a catch.

# (real tennis) The point where the wall of the court meets the floor.

# (genetics) One of the single-stranded DNA segments produced during nick translation.

(archaic) A nixie, or water-sprite.

* 1879 , Viktor Rydberg, The Magic of the Middle Ages (p.201)

*:imps, giants, trolls, forest-spirits, elves and hobgoblins in and on the earth; nicks , river-sprites in the water, fiends in the air, and salamanders in the fire.

a user's reserved nick on an IRC network

(UK, slang) In the expressions in bad nick'' and ''in good nick : condition.

The car I bought was cheap and in good nick .

* '>citation

(British, slang) A police station or prison.

He was arrested and taken down to Sun Hill nick [police station] to be charged.

He's just been released from Shadwell nick [prison] after doing ten years for attempted murder.

Derived terms

* in the nick of time

Verb

(en verb)

To make a nick or notch in; to cut or scratch in a minor way.

I nicked myself while I was shaving.

# To make a cross cut or cuts on the underside of (the tail of a horse, in order to make the animal carry it higher).

# To mar; to deface; to make ragged, as by cutting nicks or notches in.

#* Prior

And thence proceed to nicking sashes.

#* Shakespeare

The itch of his affection should not then / Have nicked his captainship.

To suit or fit into, as by a correspondence of nicks; to tally with.

* Camden

Words nicking and resembling one another are applicable to different significations.

# To hit at, or in, the nick; to touch rightly; to strike at the precise point or time.

#* L'Estrange

The just season of doing things must be nicked , and all accidents improved.

# To throw or turn up (a number when playing dice); to hit upon.

#* {{quote-book, year=1773

, author=Oliver Goldsmith , title=She Stoops to Conquer , text=My old luck: I never nicked seven that I did not throw ames ace three times following.}}

# (cricket) to hit the ball with the edge of the bat and produce a fine deflection

(obsolete) To nickname; to style.

* Ford

For Warbeck, as you nick him, came to me.

(slang) To steal.

Someone's nicked my bike!

(transitive, British, slang) To arrest.

The police nicked him climbing over the fence of the house he'd broken into.