bicker

present singular third person bickers · participle present bickering · participle past bickered · past bickered

1. To quarrel in a tiresome, insulting manner.

   They bickered about dinner every evening.

   2 more examples

   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), London: A[braham] J[ohn] Valpy, […], published 1830–1831, →OCLC

   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 November 16, Paul Bigland, “From rural branches to high-speed arteries”, in RAIL, number 970, page 55

2. To brawl or move tremulously, quiver, shimmer (of a water stream, light, flame, etc.)

   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

   1 more example

   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 Thomson, “Canto I”, in The Castle of Indolence: […], London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, stanza III, page 2

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.

   1606, Caius [i.e., Gaius] Suetonius Tranquillus, “The Historie of Flavius Vespatianus Augustus”, in Philêmon Holland, transl., The Historie of Twelve Cæsars Emperours of Rome. […], London: […] [Humphrey Lownes and George Snowdon] for Matthew Lownes, →OCLC, section 5, page 243

plural bickers

1. countableA skirmish; an encounter.
2. ScotlandcountableobsoleteA fight with stones between two parties of boys.

   1 more example

   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[…]

   1773, R. Ford, “Biographical Introduction”, in The Poetical Works of Robert Ferguson

3. countableuncountableA wrangle; also, a noise, as in angry contention.
4. countableuncountableThe 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

plural bickers

1. ScotlandA 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, published 2010, page 6

1. A surname.