What's the difference between bicker and skirmish?

Bicker


Definition:

  • (n.) A small wooden vessel made of staves and hoops, like a tub.
  • (v. i.) To skirmish; to exchange blows; to fight.
  • (v. i.) To contend in petulant altercation; to wrangle.
  • (v. i.) To move quickly and unsteadily, or with a pattering noise; to quiver; to be tremulous, like flame.
  • (n.) A skirmish; an encounter.
  • (n.) A fight with stones between two parties of boys.
  • (n.) A wrangle; also, a noise,, as in angry contention.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) When she is bickering with Bleeker about the conception, and it looks as though he is going to have the last word by telling her that he has kept her knickers as a memento, she, without missing a beat, says, "I still have your virginity."
  • (2) The head of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) yesterday urged diplomats to stop bickering about a mini package of liberalisation designed to boost global commerce and warned of serious damage to the 20-year-old institution if last-ditch talks failed.
  • (3) "We wanted a backdrop of global espionage, and then the goal was to ignore it as much as possible to focus on people bickering," Reed explains.
  • (4) Over the Atlantic, as politicians bicker over the debt-reduction programme, Moody's has said the US's top-notch credit rating is under review.
  • (5) From upstairs comes the reassuring sound of children bickering.
  • (6) It could not be more fortunate for employers, the ease with which we can be set to bickering among ourselves.
  • (7) An unlikely coalition of sworn enemies, who had campaigned together under the Better Together slogan of “No Thanks”, came to a juddering and messy end as the UK parties bickered over future voting rights of MPs at Westminster.
  • (8) Which makes me wonder if the Dutch (my people btw) will succumb to the bickering and discontent of their recent Euro outing on the first sign of trouble.
  • (9) After observing a couple of weeks of bickering over who would get what time, we threatened to remove them again, whereupon the boys negotiated with each other and came up with an equitable time-sharing agreement.
  • (10) The ensuing months of uncertainty and bickering have not always gone down well with voters .
  • (11) On one question, at least, the bickering candidates in Wednesday’s Republican debate did agree: it was a juvenile way to pick a president.
  • (12) A single example, plucked at random from a lifetime's supply: years ago, after I'd been bickering with a friend who was visiting my flat in London, she fell silent for several minutes and then, pointing to my wooden floors, observed, "You know that floor's laminate, don't you?"
  • (13) Incrementally, forwards and backwards, prevaricating, bickering: so it has been for three years of European troubles that began on the periphery, in Greece, but have spread to the heartland, condemning Europe to a lost decade.
  • (14) In delivering his inflammatory speech, the president was defying Khamenei who a few weeks ago warned officials against bickering, saying those who bring disputes to public attention are "betraying" the revolution.
  • (15) Open Mon-Wed 12.30pm-1am, Thurs-Sat 12.30pm-1.30am, closed Sundays Bar The Clinic Facebook Twitter Pinterest Owned by Chile’s top satirical magazine, The Clinic , and covered in its political cartoons, this infamous bar is where the intelligentsia comes to bicker over beers.
  • (16) Amid the bickering, there was also a sense that Kerry's visit may indicate a failure of Afghanistan's fledgling democratic process.
  • (17) Mohamed El-Erian , chief executive of Pimco: For the sake of their country and the wider global economy, both parties should resist the urge to begin bickering.
  • (18) She also added her voice to the welter of criticism over the bickering performance of the BBC's top brass – current and former – in front of the Commons public accounts committee on Monday.
  • (19) … You’re going to get what I think, whether you like it or not, whether it makes you cringe every once in a while or not.” Decrying “bickering leaders in Washington DC”, Christie held out his record as a fiscally conservative governor with a record early in his tenure of bipartisan victories as evidence of change he could bring to the national capital.
  • (20) Noah’s presence should an international flavour to the show, hopefully breaking it out of its obsession with the 24-hour news channels and petty Washington bickering.

Skirmish


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To fight slightly or in small parties; to engage in a skirmish or skirmishes; to act as skirmishers.
  • (v. i.) A slight fight in war; a light or desultory combat between detachments from armies, or between detached and small bodies of troops.
  • (v. i.) A slight contest.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) This we can see writ large in the prime minister’s skirmishes with Philip Hammond , the only member of government visibly considering the national interest.
  • (2) Manouras added: We will only know once the coroner has conducted an autopsy, but what I can say is that there were no police or skirmishes at the spot at which he died.
  • (3) But decades of struggle and skirmishes with neighbours have resulted in a tightly guarded border, and they were soon captured by men in uniform.
  • (4) On Wembley Way the party atmosphere had been briefly punctuated by a skirmish between rival fans.
  • (5) Benghazi's special forces, who declared support for Haftar, have skirmished with the militias he is targeting but the general himself has not yet been inside the city.
  • (6) But the confrontation quickly escalated into a series of skirmishes as the two sides played a deadly cat and mouse game in the centre of the city.
  • (7) On the face of it, this was little more than a skirmish in a town on Mali's north-east confines.
  • (8) For the UN negotiators in Qatar, this year's talks are just the skirmishes before the key date of 2015, when a new global agreement must be achieved.
  • (9) But Panorama's North Korea film, due to be broadcast on Monday, presents a challenge of a different order to the skirmish earlier last week about playing a song on the charts that could be taken as disrespectful to Lady Thatcher.
  • (10) No, I see it as being the right opportunity at the right time,” says a man desperate to break Wearside’s perennial relegation skirmishes.
  • (11) That interpretation was then corroborated by Labour MPs, who either hadn’t read the document or saw it as a handy weapon in skirmishes for control of the party’s election message.
  • (12) 4.08pm: Below the line, baerchen is upbeat : "Having watched England's superstar striker give the ball away umpty-nine times against Man City last night with some of the clumsiest touches seen since my brief skirmish with a girl from Hackenthorpe in 1971, they might as well give the job to Charles Chimp for all the difference it will make.
  • (13) It is the latest skirmish in the bitter infighting that has befallen Ukip since the election in which the party won 4 million votes but just one parliamentary seat.
  • (14) While the skirmish between Chris Christie and Paul over terrorism and its prevention via surveillance got a lot of media attention this week , it's more helpful to look at the general trend among potential candidates.
  • (15) Police fired volleys of tear gas canisters into a crowd of thousands - people in office clothes as well as youths in masks who had fought skirmishes throughout the day - scattering them into side streets and nearby hotels.
  • (16) When TV cameras start filming skirmishes in the crowd, Trump argues their focus on the protesters is evidence of liberal media bias.
  • (17) This rapidly escalating skirmish in American culture wars came after the Department of Justice sued North Carolina for a state law that forced people to only use public bathrooms that correspond to the gender listed on their birth certificates.
  • (18) In Tripoli, fighters from the GNC’s militia force, Libya Dawn , have turned on each other in several nights of skirmishing, even as pro-Tobruk forces battle Libya Dawn for control of the coastal highway west of the city.
  • (19) Skirmishes have flared outside Iraqi’s second largest city over the last few days with an airstrike on one of its main bridges on Sunday.
  • (20) It's the first battle cry in the pair's hair-raising physical and mental skirmish and has become something approaching a catchphrase.