bickering
from
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
Bicker \Bick"er\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. {Bickered}; p. pr. & vb.
n. {Bickering}.] [OE. bikeren, perh. fr. Celtic; cf. W. bicra
to fight, bicker, bicre conflict, skirmish; perh. akin to E.
beak.]
1. To skirmish; to exchange blows; to fight. [Obs.]
[1913 Webster]
Two eagles had a conflict, and bickered together.
--Holland.
[1913 Webster]
2. To contend in petulant altercation; to wrangle.
[1913 Webster]
Petty things about which men cark and bicker.
--Barrow.
[1913 Webster]
3. To move quickly and unsteadily, or with a pattering noise;
to quiver; to be tremulous, like flame.
[1913 Webster]
They [streamlets] bickered through the sunny shade.
--Thomson.
[1913 Webster]
from
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
140 Moby Thesaurus words for "bickering":
Kilkenny cats, aflicker, aggressive, aggressiveness, altercation,
apologetics, apologia, apology, argument, argumentation, bellicose,
bellicosity, belligerence, belligerent, bicker, blinking, boggling,
captious, captiousness, casuistry, cat-and-dog life, caviling,
chicane, chicanery, choplogic, combat, combative, combativeness,
conflict, contention, contentiousness, contest, contestation,
controversy, cut and thrust, dancing, debate, defense, disputation,
disputatious, dispute, dissension, dissent, dissidence, divisive,
dodging, embroilment, enmity, equivocation, equivocatory, eristic,
evasion, evasive, faction, factional, factious, factiousness,
fencing, fighting, flak, flashing, flickering, flickery, flicky,
fluttering, fluttery, flyting, hairsplitting, hassle, hedging,
hostility, hubbub, infighting, irascibility, irascible,
irritability, irritable, lambent, litigation, litigious,
litigiousness, logic-chopping, logomachy, nit-picking, paltering,
paper war, parrying, partisan, partisan spirit, partisanship,
passage of arms, pettifoggery, petty, picayune, playing,
polarizing, polemic, polemics, prevarication, pugnacious,
pugnacity, pussyfooting, quarrel, quarreling, quarrelsome,
quarrelsomeness, quibbling, quivering, quivery, rhubarb, row,
run-in, scrapping, set-to, shifting, shrewish, shrewishness,
shuffling, sidestepping, spat, squabble, squabbling, strife,
stroboscopic, struggle, subterfuge, tergiversation, trichoschistic,
trichoschistism, trifling, trivial, verbal engagement, war,
war of words, warfare, wavering, wavery, words, wrangle,
wrangling
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