Tiff vs Bicker - What's the difference?
tiff | bicker |
A small argument; a petty quarrel.
* 1840 , William Makepeace Thackeray, Catherine: A Story
Liquor; especially, a small draught of liquor.
* Sir Walter Scott
To quarrel in a tiresome, insulting manner.
* Barrow
To move tremulously, quiver, shimmer (of a water stream, of a flame)
*XIX cent,
* Thomson
To skirmish; to exchange blows; to fight.
* Holland
A skirmish; an encounter.
(Scotland, obsolete) A fight with stones between two parties of boys.
A wrangle; also, a noise, as in angry contention.
As a proper noun tiff
is a nickname for tiffany.As a verb bicker is
to quarrel in a tiresome, insulting manner.As a noun bicker is
a skirmish; an encounter or bicker can be a small wooden vessel made of staves and hoops, like a tub.tiff
English
Etymology 1
Originally, a sniff, sniffing; compare Icelandic word for a smell.Noun
(en noun)- There’s Tom, now, since this tiff with Mrs. Cat, the scoundrel plays the Grand Turk here!
- sipping his tiff of brandy punch.
Synonyms
* See alsoEtymology 2
Middle English tiffen, (etyl) tiffer, (tifer), to bedizen; compare D. (tippen) to clip the points or ends of the hair, English tip (noun).Anagrams
* English intransitive verbsbicker
English
Etymology 1
(etyl) bikeren ‘to attack’, from (etyl) bicken ‘to stab, attack’ (modern bikken ‘to hack’), from (etyl) ‘to smash, break’.Verb
(en verb)- They bickered about dinner every evening.
- petty things about which men cark and bicker
- I come from haunts of coot and hern, / I make a sudden sally, / And sparkle out among the fern, / To bicker down a valley.
- They [streamlets] bickered through the sunny shade.
- Two eagles had a conflict, and bickered together.
Derived terms
*bickererSynonyms
* wrangle * See alsoNoun
(en noun)- (Jamieson)