in the nick of time

At the last possible moment before a deadline or before something begins or ends; just in time. That car moved off the track in the nick of time—another moment and the train would have smashed into it. You got here in the nick of time—we're just about to start the show.

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.

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.

COMMON If something happens in the nick of time, it happens at the last possible moment, when it is almost too late. She woke up just in the nick of time and raised the alarm. They got to the hospital in the nick of time, just as the baby was about to be born.

Just at the critical moment; just in time.

At the last minute, just in time. This term comes from a now obsolete meaning of nick, that is, “the critical moment.” A 1577 chronicle states, “The Romane navie . . . arrived at the very pinch, or as commonly we say, in the nicke.” Nearly a century later of time was added to clarify the issue, although just in the nick continued to be used for many years. It probably was a cliché by the time Sir Walter Scott wrote (The Pirate, 1821), “The fortunate arrival of Gordaunt, in the very nick of time.”