in the nick of time

idiom

informal

: just before the last moment when something can be changed or something bad will happen

He decided to go just in the nick of time.

The ambulance arrived in the nick of time.

Examples of in the nick of time in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Luckily, Sigrid is able to shoot Richard in the shoulder with a gun she's retrieved in the nick of time, and Lo manages to finish him off by hitting him over the head with a metal pipe. —Megan McCluskey, Time, 10 Oct. 2025

Swift's song, then, tells the tale of how a new lover (presumably, Travis Kelce) stepped into her life in the nick of time and saved her from the titular fate of Ophelia. —Lauren Huff, Entertainment Weekly, 6 Oct. 2025

Johnson miraculously got away in the nick of time, suffering only a minor leg injury. —Ronnie Li, USA Today, 24 Sep. 2025

The winning streak came just in the nick of time to avoid going down that path to a sell-off. —Sam Blum, New York Times, 29 July 2025

Rhymes for in the nick of time

• aforetime
• allozyme
• anytime
• christmastime
• cybercrime
• dinnertime
• guggenheim
• isozyme
• lysozyme
• maritime
• mesenchyme
• overtime