bicker
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English[edit]
Pronunciation[edit]
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈbɪkə/
Audio (UK) (file)
- Rhymes: -ɪkə(r)
Etymology 1[edit]
From Middle English bikeren (“to attack”), from Middle Dutch bicken (“to stab, thrust, attack”) + -er (frequentative suffix), from Proto-Germanic *bikjaną (compare Old English becca (“pickax”), Dutch bikken (“to hack”), German picken (“to peck, pick at”), Old Norse bikkja (“to plunge into water”)), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeg- (“to smash, break”). Compare also German Low German bickern (“to nibble, gnaw”).
Verb[edit]
bicker (third-person singular simple present bickers, present participle bickering, simple past and past participle bickered)
- To quarrel in a tiresome, insulting manner.
- They bickered about dinner every evening.
- a. 1677, Isaac Barrow, Of Industry in our particular Calling, as Scholars (sermon)
- petty things about which men cark and bicker
- To brawl or move tremulously, quiver, shimmer (of a water stream, light, flame, etc.)
- 1748, James Thomson, “Canto I”, in The Castle of Indolence: […], London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, […], OCLC 54163524, stanza III, page 2:
- Mean time unnumber'd glittering Streamlets play'd, / And hurled every-where their Waters ſheen; / That, as they bicker'd through the ſunny Glade, / Though reſtleſs ſtill themſelves, a lulling Murmur made.
- 1886, 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.
- (of rain) To patter.
- To skirmish; to exchange blows; to fight.
- 1606, Philemon Holland, The Historie of Twelve Caesars
- Two egles had a conflict, and bickered together.
- 1606, Philemon Holland, The Historie of Twelve Caesars
Synonyms[edit]
- wrangle
- See also Thesaurus:squabble
Derived terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
quarrel in a tiresome manner
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Noun[edit]
bicker (plural bickers)
- A skirmish; an encounter.
- (Scotland, obsolete) A fight with stones between two parties of boys.
- (Can we find and add a quotation of Jamieson to this entry?)
- A wrangle; also, a noise, as in angry contention.
- The process by which selective eating clubs at Princeton University choose new members.
- 2005, Alison Fraser, Princeton University: Princeton, New Jersey, College Prowler, Inc (→ISBN), page 41:
- Bicker process varies by club, and there are often concerns of the rights of female students during bicker […]
- 2005, Alison Fraser, Princeton University: Princeton, New Jersey, College Prowler, Inc (→ISBN), page 41:
Translations[edit]
skirmish
Etymology 2[edit]
From Scots bicker, from Middle English biker. Doublet of beaker.
Noun[edit]
bicker (plural bickers)
- (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.
- 1824, James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, Oxford 2010, p. 6:
Further reading[edit]
- 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)
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