bickerとは

意味・読み方・使い方

語源 1

From Middle English bikeren (“to attack”), from Middle Dutch bicken (“to stab, thrust, attack”) +‎ -er (frequentative suffix), from Proto-Germanic *bikjaną (compare 古期英語 becca (“pickax”), Dutch bikken (“to hack”), German picken (“to peck, pick at”), Old Norse bikkja (“to plunge into water”)), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeg- (“to smash, break”). Compare also German Low German bickern (“to nibble, gnaw”).

動詞

bicker (三人称単数 現在形 bickers, 現在分詞 bickering, 過去形および過去分詞形 bickered)

1. To quarrel in a tiresome, insulting manner.

   They bickered about dinner every evening.

   • a. 1677, Isaac Barrow, Of Industry in our particular Calling, as Scholars (sermon)

     petty things about which men cark and bicker

2. To brawl or move tremulously, quiver, shimmer (of a water stream, light, flame, etc.)
   • 1748, James Thomson, “Canto I”, in The Castle of Indolence: […], London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, […], OCLC 54163524, stanza III, page 2:

     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.

   • 1886, The Brook, by Tennyson

     I come from haunts of coot and hern, / I make a sudden sally, / And sparkle out among the fern, / To bicker down a valley.

3. (of rain) To patter.
4. To skirmish; to exchange blows; to fight.
   • 1606, Philemon Holland, The Historie of Twelve Caesars

     Two egles had a conflict, and bickered together.

同意語

• wrangle
• See also Thesaurus:squabble

派生語

• bickerer

名詞

bicker (複数形 bickers)

1. A skirmish; an encounter.
2. (Scotland, obsolete) A fight with stones between two parties of boys.

   (Can we find かつ add a quotation of Jamieson to this entry?)

3. A wrangle; also, a noise, as in angry contention.
4. The process by which selective eating clubs at Princeton University choose new members.
   • 2005, Alison Fraser, Princeton University: Princeton, New Jersey, College Prowler, Inc (→ISBN), page 41:

     Bicker process varies by club, and there are often concerns of the rights of female students during bicker […]