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bickering

[bik-er]

Example Sentences Origin

verb (used without object)

to engage in petulant or peevish argument; wrangle: The two were always bickering.

to run rapidly; move quickly; rush; hurry: a stream bickering down the valley.

to flicker; glitter: The sun bickered through the trees.

noun

an angry, petty dispute or quarrel; contention.

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Bickering is always a great word to know.

So is lollapalooza. Does it mean:

an extraordinary or unusual thing, person, or event; an exceptional example or instance.

the offspring of a zebra and a donkey.

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Origin:
1250–1300; Middle English bikeren < ?

Related forms

bick·er·er, noun

un·bick·ered, adjective

un·bick·er·ing, adjective

Synonyms
1. disagree, squabble, argue, quarrel, haggle, dispute, spar, spat.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Link To bickering

Example Sentences

Like the sounds of a crying child on an airplane, partisan bickering has become unavoidable background noise.

Bickering and infighting do not contribute to addressing these broad societal goals.

Years of bureaucratic bickering set things badly behind.

EXPAND

Like the sounds of a crying child on an airplane, partisan bickering has become unavoidable background noise.

Bickering and infighting do not contribute to addressing these broad societal goals.

Years of bureaucratic bickering set things badly behind.

There is no point in countries bickering about who is to blame for climate change.

There are many questions to be answered and bickering over this won't get the job done.

It has survived presidential censure and intra-service bickering.

Sometimes they work together, but they spend a lot of time bickering and jockeying for position, too.

The report portrays a leaderless inquiry mired in internal bickering that failed to grasp the scope of the crisis.

The decision came after months of bickering over the autonomy of the nation's second-largest guarantee agency.

Congress is completely busted and knee-deep in pre-election bickering.

But there will be some red tape and bickering until it is.

Many were killed in the violent bickering that seems to be a local tradition.

The two giant wireless rivals have already commenced bickering about the iPhone.

There are times when such political bickering can be funny.

Take a group of bickering students and imagine spending two semesters with them, and you can see the problem.

Constant bickering and needless rivalries have been the alliance's trademark for some time.

All this question achieves is endless rancorous bickering and nit picking.

But bickering over transit spending is part of the reason that the package is currently stuck in legislative limbo.

The bickering about emissions-trading will also focus attention on the expense of fighting global warming.

Yet one constant remains: petty political bickering.

Meanwhile, in the background, the shareholders-or their representatives-are bickering and the unions are suspicious.

It's not part of bickering between political rivals, it's a matter of respecting the law of the country.

Portugal has not been helped by its indecisive and bickering politicians.

Just as the two countries prepare for their presidents to meet, bickering has broken out.

There isn't much to be gained from bickering between governments about these issues.

And don't be put off by the bickering on this forum.

All should stop bickering about whatever,and save your soul.

It's been done before, but these funny, relatively unknown actors make the bickering investigators' shtick seem fresh again.

But what goes on between them is not so much a battle but a prolonged bout of bickering.

It's time to reduce the intensity of bickering over indeterminable minutia.

Ie speaking poorly of colleagues between committee members, obvious bickering between committee members, etc.

Seagulls are bickering overhead, edging out pigeons to land on bread crusts.

The resultant bickering and low morale do not mean that al-Qaeda and its followers cannot still mount spectacular attacks.

Bickering and fighting does not accomplish anything.

The bickering culminated in a late autumn squabble about the attorney-general's job.

Instead, years of bickering have ensued among charter advocates, school boards and teachers' unions.

Many of its details are ambiguous, leaving much scope for bickering when it is implemented.

Special task-forces drawn from federal and local forces disintegrated in bickering.

Partisan and intra-party bickering at a time of national emergency has further battered politics' reputation.

In parliament, petty bickering is the order of the day.

The same partisan extremists bickering about the same controversies would lead nowhere.

COLLAPSE

Collins

World English Dictionary

bicker (ˈbɪkə)

—vb
1.	to argue over petty matters; squabble
2.	poetic
	a. (esp of a stream) to run quickly
	b. to flicker; glitter

—n
3.	a petty squabble

[C13: of unknown origin]

'bickerer

—n

'bickering

—n, —*adj*

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

bicker

early 14c., bikere, "to skirmish, fight," perhaps from M.Du. bicken "to slash, stab, attack," + -er, M.E. frequentative suffix. Meaning "to quarrel" is from mid-15c. As a noun, bicker is recorded from c.1300; often used to describe the sound of a flight of a missile, in which sense it is perhaps at least

EXPAND

partly echoic.

bickering

c.1300, "a skirmish," from bicker (q.v.). Meaning "a verbal wrangle" is from 1570s. As a prp. adj., attested from 1808 in the sense of "contentious;" earlier it was used to mean "flashing, quivering" (1660s).

COLLAPSE

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Matching Quote

"In the meantime no sense in bickering about pronouns and other parts of blather."

-Samuel Beckett

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