bicker

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
14
Words With Friends
16
Letters
6
Pronunciation
/ˈbɪkɚ/
See all 2 pronunciations
/ˈbɪkɚ/ · /ˈbɪkə/ (UK)

Definition of bicker

9 senses · 2 parts of speech · etymology included

verb

  1. To quarrel in a tiresome, insulting manner.
    “They bickered about dinner every evening.”
    “petty things about which men cark and bicker”
    “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!”
See all 9 definitions

verb

  1. To quarrel in a tiresome, insulting manner.
    “They bickered about dinner every evening.”
    “petty things about which men cark and bicker”
    “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!”
  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.”
    “I come from haunts of coot and hern, / I make a sudden sally, / And sparkle out among the fern, / To bicker down a valley.”
  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 inſtant from the ſunne riſing and chaſed the Victreſſe avvay.”

noun

  1. (countable)A skirmish; an encounter.
  2. (Scotland, countable, obsolete)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 bannets" - in other words, to break a window, head a skirmish with stones, and hold the bonnet[…]”
  3. (countable, uncountable)A wrangle; also, a noise, as in angry contention.
  4. (countable, uncountable)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 […]”
  5. (Scotland)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.”

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

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…

See full etymology

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”).

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