I heard it in Diana the movie.
Someone tells the surgeon “nice one” when they meet in the stairs.
I am not sure if we need context here or if it is just an idiomatic expression in English (or perhaps just an expression in British English).
phrase-meaningphrase-usage
I heard it in Diana the movie.
Someone tells the surgeon “nice one” when they meet in the stairs.
I am not sure if we need context here or if it is just an idiomatic expression in English (or perhaps just an expression in British English).
Best Answer
Nice one is quite informal and has a couple of meanings. It's often followed by mate, (a friendly form of address between men) in BrE and AuE as in Nice one, mate. In AmE the term buddy could be used instead of mate.
When used in the positive it means Well done or Thanks (or both) here's a few typical examples.
All of the above are positive and likely to be what you heard in the movie but it's possible to use Nice one in a negative way. Here are a couple of examples.
You can really only tell the difference between positive and negative Nice one by the context and more so by the tone of voice used by the speaker.
I wouldn't say it was specifically British English, Australians definitely use the positive version and as noted in the comments Americans use both the positive and negative meaning but might not use it for thanks.