nip and tuck
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
very close or evenly matched
Literally: a sewing phrase for a tight finish
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
It was nip and tuck up to 7 - 7 before Best opened up a 12 - 9 lead.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed on Wikipedia “Irreversible binomial” (CC BY-SA 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-29). Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “nip and tuck” mean?
very close or evenly matched Literally: a sewing phrase for a tight finish
Is “nip and tuck” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.