squabble

What it means

1. A minor fight or argument.

   The children got into a squabble about who should ride in the front of the car.

   2 more examples

   It was obvious to the inhabitants of the small coastal town of Bridport that in the midst of these squabbles their need for a railway was going to be overlooked, and they decided to take the matter into their own hands.

   1957 November 28, J. Spencer Gilks, “Centenary of the Bridport Branch”, in Railway Magazine, page 747

   "p your mess. Also, as apologetic as you were for occupying my time, which I had hoped to spend with my daughter, you used about twice as many words as you needed to, and wasted an entire paragraph complaining about your colleagues. I went back to the SCP-079 file — Supervisor Valis would have had the thing decommissioned years ago if it weren't for your blatant technofetishism. Yet, you have the gall to characterize the Foundation's ongoing political interventions and military operations as squabbles."

   2022 October 18, Placeholder McD, “SCP-7579 [offset 1]”, in SCP Foundation, archived from the original on 20 Dec 2024

2. collectiveA group of seagulls.

   Damon pointed at the squabble of gulls.

   2016, Jenifer McVaugh, Our Lady of Happy Endings, Friesen Press

   2 more examples

   When the squabble of gulls splashed into the river, they squawked, swam apart, flapped away with dripping bits in bloody beaks

   2022, Robert Dean Holland, Dragons of Janaidar and Elijah, The Stolen Man: A Science Fiction Fantasy, Roxytone LLC

   listening to the squabble of gulls as they fight for leftover scraps of picnic down at the seafront.

   2013, Isabel Ashdown, Summer of '76, Myriad Editions

In a sentence

The children got into a squabble about who should ride in the front of the car.

Where it comes from

The noun form first appears c. 1602, while the verbal form first appears c. 1616. Probably of North Germanic origin and ultimately imitative. Related to Swedish dialectal skvabbel (“a dispute, quarrel, gossip”), Norwegian dialectal skvabba (“to prattle”), German dialectal schwabbeln (“to babble, prattle”), Swedish dialectal skvappa (“to chide, scold”, literally “make a splash”).