different between feud vs bicker

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: fyo?od, IPA^(key): /fju?d/
• Rhymes: -u?d

Etymology 1

From northern Middle English fede, feide, from Old French faide/feide/fede, from Old High German fehida, from Proto-West Germanic *faihiþu (“hatred, enmity”) (corresponding to foe +? -th), from Proto-Indo-European *pey?- (“hostile”). Old English f?hþ, f?hþu, f?hþo (“hostility, enmity, violence, revenge, vendetta”) was directly inherited from Proto-Germanic *faihiþ?, and is cognate to Modern German Fehde, Dutch vete (“feud”), Danish fejde (“feud, enmity, hostility, war”), and Swedish fejd (“feud, controversy, quarrel, strife”).

Alternative forms

• fede (obsolete)

Noun

feud (plural feuds)

1. A state of long-standing mutual hostility.

   You couldn't call it a feud exactly, but there had always been a chill between Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods.

2. (professional wrestling) A staged rivalry between wrestlers.
3. (obsolete) A combination of kindred to avenge injuries or affronts, done or offered to any of their blood, on the offender and all his race.

Related terms

• blood feud

Translations

Verb

feud (third-person singular simple present feuds, present participle feuding, simple past and past participle feuded)

1. (intransitive) To carry on a feud.

   The two men began to feud after one of them got a job promotion and the other thought he was more qualified.

Translations

Etymology 2

From Medieval Latin feudum. Doublet of fee.

Alternative forms

• feod

Noun

feud (plural feuds)

2. An estate granted to a vassal by a feudal lord in exchange for service.

Synonyms

• fee
• fief

Related terms

• feudal
• feudalism

Translations

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?b?k?/

  Rhymes: -?k?(r)

Etymology 1

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

Verb

bicker (third-person singular simple present bickers, present participle bickering, simple past and past participle bickered)

1. To quarrel in a tiresome, insulting manner.
   • 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.)
   • 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.

Synonyms

• wrangle
• See also Thesaurus:squabble

Derived terms

• bickerer

Translations

Noun

bicker (plural bickers)

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

   (Can we find and 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 […]

Translations

Etymology 2

From Scots bicker, from Middle English biker. Doublet of beaker.

Noun

bicker (plural bickers)

1. (Scotland) A wooden drinking-cup or other dish.
   • 1824, James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, Oxford 2010, p. 6:

     …the liquors were handed around in great fulness, the ale in large wooden bickers, and the brandy in capacious horns of oxen.

Further reading

• bicker in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• bicker in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• Bicker in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)