bicker
Part of speech: verb
noun
Morphological type: derivation
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”).
Affixes: -er
Inflected forms:
form: bickers
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: bickering
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: bickered
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: bickered
pos: verb
tags: past
form: bickers
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: To quarrel in a tiresome, insulting manner.
pos: verb
examples: 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!
gloss: To brawl or move tremulously, quiver, shimmer (of a water stream, light, flame, etc.)
pos: verb
examples: 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.
gloss: To patter.
pos: verb
gloss: To skirmish; to exchange blows; to fight.
pos: verb
examples: 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.
gloss: A skirmish; an encounter.
pos: noun
tags: countable
gloss: A fight with stones between two parties of boys.
pos: noun
tags: Scotland
countable
obsolete
examples: 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[…]
gloss: A wrangle; also, a noise, as in angry contention.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: The process by which selective eating clubs at Princeton University choose new members.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: Bicker process varies by club, and there are often concerns of the rights of female students during bicker […]
Synonyms: wrangle
Derived words: bickerer
bicker like a married couple
bicker like an old married couple
bickerment
bickersome
Translations: