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 brawl or move tremulously, quiver, shimmer (of a water stream, light, flame, etc.)
   • 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. (of rain) To patter.
4. To skirmish; to exchange blows; to fight.
   • Holland

     Two eagles had a conflict, and bickered together.

Synonyms

• wrangle
• See also Thesaurus:squabble

Derived terms

• bickerer

Translations

to quarrel in a tiresome manner

• Bulgarian: дърля се (dǎrlja se), карам се (karam se)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: please add this translation if you can

• Danish: skændes, mundhugges
• Dutch: harrewarren (nl), bekvechten (nl), kibbelen (nl)
• Finnish: kiistellä (fi), nahistella (fi), kinastella (fi)
• French: ^{(please verify)} se chamailler (fr)

• German: streiten (de), zanken (de), hadern (de), sich fetzen
• Italian: bisticciare (it), litigare (it)
• Japanese: 喧嘩する (kenkasuru)
• Maori: komekome, tarahae, korokīkī
• Russian: переругиваться (ru) (pererugivatʹsja), препираться (ru) (prepiratʹsja)
• Swedish: gnabbas, kivas (sv), munhuggas (sv), 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.

Translations

a skirmish

• Italian: bisticcio (it) m, lite (it) f

• Russian: стычка (ru) f (styčka)

Etymology 2

From Scots bicker, from Middle English biker (compare beaker).

Noun

bicker (plural bickers)

1. (Scotland) A wooden drinking-cup or other dish.
   • 1824, James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, Oxford 2010, p. 6:

     …the liquors were handed around in great fulness, the ale in large wooden bickers, and the brandy in capacious horns of oxen.

Further reading

• 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 Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)