dicker
English
editEtymology
editFrom Middle English diker (“measure of ten”), from Late Latin dacra (“a dicker”), from Latin decuria (“a ten of something”), from decem (“ten”).[1]
Pronunciation
editAudio (US): (file) - (Received Pronunciation) enPR: dĭkə(r), IPA(key): /ˈdɪkə(ɹ)/
- (General American) enPR: dĭkər, IPA(key): /ˈdɪkɚ/
- Rhymes: -ɪkə(ɹ)
Verb
editdicker (third-person singular simple present dickers, present participle dickering, simple past and past participle dickered)
- (intransitive) To bargain, haggle or negotiate over a sale.
- 1941, Emily Carr, chapter 6, in Klee Wyck[1]:
- In the brilliant sparkle of the morning when everything that was not superlatively blue was superlatively green, I dickered with a man who was taking a party up the inlet that he should drop me off at the village I was headed for.
- (intransitive) To barter.
- 1848, James Fenimore Cooper, chapter 2, in The Oak Openings[2]:
- Then, the white men who penetrated to those semi-wilds were always ready to "dicker" and to "swap," and to "trade" rifles, and watches, and whatever else they might happen to possess, almost to their wives and children.
- (intransitive) To fiddle.
- 1981, Jack Cady, Singleton:
- They sat in a booth near the door and drank the first cold ones of the evening while watching three impassioned pinballers dickering with flashing, promising, tilting machines.
Noun
editdicker (countable and uncountable, plural dickers)
- (obsolete) A unit of measure, consisting of 10 of some object, particularly hides and skins.
- 1599, attributed to Thomas Heywood, Edward IV, Part One, Act III, Scene 1, [3]
- Hobs [the Tanner of Tamsworth]. […] My taking is more than my spending, for here's store left. I have spent but a groat; a penny for my two jades, a penny to the poor, a penny pot of ale, and a penny cake for my man and me, a dicker of cowhides cost me.
- 1866, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, volume 1, page 171:
- The dicker, or daker, was ten, and is found, though generally at later times than the period before us, as a measure for hides and gloves.
- 1599, attributed to Thomas Heywood, Edward IV, Part One, Act III, Scene 1, [3]
- (US) A chaffering, barter, or exchange, of small wares.
- to make a dicker
- 1856, John Greenleaf Whittier, The Panorama[4]:
- “Grant that the North’s insulted, scorned, betrayed,
O'erreached in bargains with her neighbor made,
When selfish thrift and party held the scales
For peddling dicker, not for honest sales,—
Whom shall we strike? Who most deserves our blame?
Synonyms
editReferences
edit- ^ Skeat, Walter William. "Dicker, Daykyr" in Notes on English Etymology.
Anagrams
editGerman
editPronunciation
editAdjective
editdicker
Adjective
editdicker
Categories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Late Latin
- English terms derived from Latin
- English terms with audio links
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- Rhymes:English/ɪkə(ɹ)
- Rhymes:English/ɪkə(ɹ)/2 syllables
- English lemmas
- English verbs
- English intransitive verbs
- English terms with quotations
- English nouns
- English uncountable nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with obsolete senses
- American English
- German 2-syllable words
- German terms with IPA pronunciation
- German terms with audio links
- German non-lemma forms
- German comparative adjectives
- German adjective forms