subs. phr. (common).—The devil: see SKIPPER. Also NICKIE and NICKIE-BEN.—B. E. (c. 1696); GROSE (1785).
1662. Rump Songs, ii. 43.
| In this prodigal trick | |
| They have out-done OLD NICK, | |
| For what he did give he did show. |
1678. BUTLER, Hudibras, III. i. 1313.
| Nick Machiavel had ne’er a trick, | |
| Though he gave ’s name to our OLD NICK. |
1706. WARD, Hudibras Redivivus, I. v. 14. In painful fury roaring out, I wish your patterns at OLD NICK.
1719. D’URFEY, Wit and Mirth; or Pills to Purge Melancholy, i. 264.
| The God of Love, or else OLD NICK, | |
| Sure had design’d this Devilish trick. |
1720. SWIFT, Apollo to the Dean [Works (1824), xiv. 134]. For I think in my conscience he deals with OLD NICK.
1791. BURNS, Tam o’ Shanter, II. There sat AULD NICK, in shape o’ beast. Ibid. Add. to the Devil. But fare-you weel, AULD NICKIE-BEN.
1829. BUCKSTONE, Billy Taylor, i., 1.
| NICK or Belzebub, | |
| Or as our children call thee, black old Bogey, | |
| Appear! |
1835. HALIBURTON (‘Sam Slick’), The Clockmaker, 1 S. x. And kick like mad, and then OLD NICK himself wouldn’t start ’em.
1855. Notes and Queries, 1 S. xii. 228. All over the North a demon bearing this designation, slightly modified by dialectic variations, is commonly acknowledged. He is the Anglo-Saxon Nicer; Dan. Nöecke or Nökke (Nikke); Swedish Neck, Necken (‘ejusdem significationis’ as Finn Magnusen observes, ‘ut et Anglorum Nick—Old Nick; Belgarum, Nicker—qui, jam nune diabolum indicant’); Fennish Næki; Esthonian Nack; Scotch Nicneven; German Nichs, Nicks, Nichse, the Nickar of the people of the Feroës, and the Nikel of those of the Rügen.
1870. W. T. MONCRIEFF, Giovanni in London, i. 2. And, pray, what were you sent to OLD NICK for, my love?
1884. W. C. RUSSELL, Jack’s Courtship, xvi. I knew you’d do it—it’s the Seymour spirit—a fair grip, and OLD NICK may shriek for mercy.
1892. MILLIKEN, ’Arry Ballads, 38. In that Gallery, Charlie, OLD NICK would have found it too warm.
