bicker

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈbɪkə/

  Rhymes: -ɪkə(r)

Etymology 1

Middle English bikeren ‘to attack’, from Middle Dutch bicken ‘to stab, attack’ (modern bikken ‘to hack’), from Proto-Germanic *bikjaną (compare Old English becca ‘pickax’, German picken ‘to peck, pick at’, Old Norse bikkja ‘to plunge into water’), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeg- ‘to smash, break’.

Verb

bicker (third-person singular simple present bickers, present participle bickering, simple past and past participle bickered)

1. To quarrel in a tiresome, insulting manner.

   They bickered about dinner every evening.

   • Barrow

     petty things about which men cark and bicker

2. To move tremulously, quiver, shimmer (of a water stream, of a flame)
   • XIX cent, The Brook, by Tennyson

     I come from haunts of coot and hern, / I make a sudden sally, / And sparkle out among the fern, / To bicker down a valley.

   • Thomson

     They [streamlets] bickered through the sunny shade.

3. To skirmish; to exchange blows; to fight.
   • Holland

     Two eagles had a conflict, and bickered together.

Derived terms

• bickerer

Synonyms

• wrangle
• See also Wikisaurus:squabble

Translations

to quarrel in a tiresome manner

• Bulgarian: дърля се (dǎrlja se), карам се (karam se)
• Danish: skændes, mundhugges
• Dutch: harrewarren (nl)
• Finnish: kiistellä (fi), nahistella, kinastella

• French: se chamailler (fr)
• Maori: komekome, tarahae
• Russian: переругиваться (ru) (pererugivatʹsja), препираться (ru) (prepiratʹsja)
• Swedish: gnabbas, kivas (sv), munhuggas, käbbla (sv)

Noun

bicker (plural bickers)

1. A skirmish; an encounter.
2. (Scotland, obsolete) A fight with stones between two parties of boys.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Jamieson to this entry?)

3. A wrangle; also, a noise, as in angry contention.

Etymology 2

See beaker.

Noun

bicker (plural bickers)

1. A small wooden vessel made of staves and hoops, like a tub.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.

External links

• bicker in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• bicker in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911
• Bicker in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.