The nick that was being referred to was a notch or small cut
and was synonymous with precision. Such notches were used on 'tally' sticks to
measure or keep score.
The expressions 'keeping score' and 'keeping tally' derive
from this also and so do 'stocks' and 'shares', which refer to the splitting of
such sticks (stocks) along their length and sharing the two matching halves as
a record of a deal.
To Shakespeare and his contemporaries if someone were 'in
(or at, or upon) the (very) nick' they were in the precise place at the precise
time. Watches and the strings of musical instruments were adjusted to precise
pre-marked nicks to keep them in proper order.
The 'time' in 'the nick of time' is rather superfluous, as
nick itself refers to time. The first example of the use of the phrase as we
now know it comes in Arthur Day's Festivals, 1615: Even in this nicke of time, this very, very instant.
The English language gives us the opportunity to be 'in'
many things - the doldrums, the offing, the pink; we can even be down in the
dumps.
My gratitude to http://www.phrases.org.uk for clearing up
this matter for me.
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