Other forms: bickering, bickers, bickered
To bicker is to argue about small unimportant things. Who last filled the kettle, and whose turn it is.
The pettiness is the whole word, which is why it suits siblings, couples and long car journeys. Bickering is continuous and low-level rather than explosive, and it never quite becomes a real row. It takes about or over. The word carries a hint of weary amusement in the observer, and it is often used of politicians to suggest that the argument is beneath the seriousness of the moment.
1verbbickerTo argue repeatedly about trivial matters.
“They bickered about the route the entire way.”
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰeg-
Proto-West Germanic
*bikkjan
Old Dutch
*bikken
Middle English
bikeren
English, today
bicker
From Middle English bikeren, from dum + bicken, from Old Dutch bikken, from Proto-West Germanic bikkjan. From Middle English bikeren (“to attack”), from Middle Dutch bicken (“to stab, thrust, attack”) er, 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”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Man Called Ove, A Song of Ice and Fire
First appears in chapter 7 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word