in the nick of time

Idioms  

1. Also, just in time. At the last moment, as in The police arrived in the nick of time, or He got there just in time for dinner. The first term began life as in the nick and dates from the 1500s, when nick meant “the critical moment” (a meaning now obsolete). The second employs just in the sense of “precisely” or “closely,” a usage applied to time since the 1500s. Also see in time, def. 1.

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Example Sentences

My makeshift piggy bank has arrived in the nick of time.

From Literature

The country stored up 1.26 billion barrels of oil in the nick of time.

From The Wall Street Journal

It built up those reserves just in the nick of time.

From Barron's

I was pretty sure that we weren’t dead, that we’d activated our cuffs in the nick of time, but it was still a relief to open up my eyes in the mountain again.

From Literature

She escaped his grasp in the nick of time.

From Literature