bicker

A skirmish; an encounter.

Noun

  1. A skirmish; an encounter.
  2. A fight with stones between two parties of boys.
    • Even if he did not take part in the fighting himself, he was no doubt familiar with those who had been taught, ass Darsie Latimer was by Alan Fairford, to "smoke a cobbler, spin a lozen, head a bicker, and hold the...
  3. A wrangle; also, a noise, as in angry contention.
  4. The process by which selective eating clubs at Princeton University choose new members.
    • 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:

Origin

Etymology tree Proto-Germanic *bikjaną Proto-West Germanic *bikkjan Old Dutch *bikken Middle Dutch bickenbor. Proto-Germanic *-urōną Proto-West Germanic *-urōn Old English -erian Middle English -eren Middle English bikeren English bicker From Middle English bikeren (“to attack”), from Middle Dutch bicken (“to stab, thrust, attack”) + -er (frequentative suffix), from Old Dutch *bikken, from Proto-West Germanic *bikkjan, from Proto-Germanic *bikjaną, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeg- (“to smash, break”). See also Old English becca (“pickax”), Dutch bikken (“to hack”), German picken (“to peck, pick at”), Old Norse bikkja (“to plunge into water”); compare also German Low German bickern (“to nibble, gnaw”).

Forms

bickers

Noun Scotland

  1. A wooden drinking-cup or other dish.
    • …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,...

Origin

From Scots bicker, from Middle English biker. Doublet of beaker.

Forms

bickers

Verb

  1. To quarrel in a tiresome, insulting manner.
    • They bickered about dinner every evening.
    • petty things about which men cark and bicker - a. 1678 (date written), Isaac Barrow, “(please specify the chapter name or sermon number)”, in The Works of Dr. Isaac Barrow. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to VII),...
    • Travelling with their granny, who seems more interested in her crossword puzzle than them, they bicker and fight in a futile bid to get her attention. Oh, the joys of travelling during the school holidays! - 2022...
  2. To brawl or move tremulously, quiver, shimmer (of a water stream, light, flame, etc.)
    • 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. - 1748, James...
    • I come from haunts of coot and hern, / I make a sudden sally, / And sparkle out among the fern, / To bicker down a valley. - 1886, Tennyson, The Brook:
  3. To patter.
  4. To skirmish; to exchange blows; to fight.
    • And at the field fought before Bebriacum, ere the battailes joyned, tvvo Ægles had a conflict and bickered together in all their fights: and vvhen the one of them was foyled and overcome, a third came at the very...

Forms

bickers bickering bickered

Synonyms

wrangle

Derived

bickerer bicker like a married couple bicker like an old married couple bickerment bickersome