dicker
1 Americanverb (used without object)
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dickers,
present (3rd person singular)
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dickered,
past participle, past
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dickering
present participle
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to deal, swap, or trade with petty bargaining; bargain; haggle.
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to barter.
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to try to arrange matters by mutual bargaining.
They dickered for hours over some of the finer points of the contract.
noun
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a petty bargain.
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a barter or swap.
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an item or goods bartered or swapped.
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a deal, especially a political deal.
noun
verb
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to trade (goods) by bargaining; barter
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(intr) to negotiate a political deal
noun
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a petty bargain or barter
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the item or items bargained or bartered
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a political deal or bargain
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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dickersimple
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dickerssimple
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have dickeredperfect
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has dickeredperfect
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am dickeringprogressive
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are dickeringprogressive
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is dickeringprogressive
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have been dickeringperfect progressive
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has been dickeringperfect progressive
Past
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dickeredsimple
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had dickeredperfect
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was dickeringprogressive
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were dickeringprogressive
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had been dickeringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of dicker1
An Americanism dating back to 1795–1805; perhaps verb use of dicker 2
Origin of dicker2
First recorded in 1225–75; Middle English diker, deker, from Old French dacre and Medieval Latin dikeria, dacra; ultimately from Latin decuria decury
Explanation
To dicker is to haggle or bargain. When you buy something at a yard sale, you often have to dicker over the price. When you dicker, you negotiate, often with some arguing or going back and forth. Your new dog walker might dicker with you over how many walks your dog needs each day, and a savvy kid will dicker with her grandmother over how many cookies she's allowed to have after lunch. The word is purely American, from the early 1800s, possibly from the old fashioned noun dicker, which was once a unit of trade that meant "a set of ten hides."
Vocabulary lists containing dicker
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
And Europeans will think that they have a license to dicker with China, too.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 1, 2023
The celebrity may dicker over the price, but ultimately reach an agreement.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 5, 2021
Watching Matt Carpenter dicker and eye-roll over balls and strikes like he's Ted Williams.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 11, 2012
But we will cease to bargain and dicker over merit aid awards once offered, including requests to match or exceed another institution’s merit aid offer.
From New York Times ● Feb. 18, 2011
“I’m in no mood for a lengthy dicker, Kaerva,” I said shortly.
From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss
As the U.S. dickers over decontamination—not to mention reparations or reconciliation—organizers in Palomares promise openness and honesty, despite all the commercial advantages of keeping quiet.
From Time ● Jan. 16, 2015
After weeks of maneuvers, dickers, deals and stage-setting.
From Time Magazine Archive
Together they organized the Czech Mafia, a secret band of patriots who spied throughout Austria-Hungary during the War, providing Benes with material which he made the substance of dickers with the Allies.
From Time Magazine Archive
But Secretary Knox disclosed a promising advance: the pooling of Army-Navy procurement facilities, so that only one service dickers with each of the major aircraft and engine companies.
From Time Magazine Archive
I gathered that the heft of his spare change had come from dickers in stocks and bonds.
From The Depot Master by Joseph Crosby Lincoln
But the deadline elapsed while U.S. and Russian diplomats dickered over the terms.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 20, 2016
Last summer the pavilions at the Venice Biennale and the attics of Germany's Dokumenta III dickered and chattered with electrically driven, and even electronically musical, kinetic op.
From Time Magazine Archive
He dickered desperately for a $125 million loan from the U.S., violated the nationalism that he himself had urged by trying to swing a deal with Standard Oil of California to exploit Argentine oil.
From Time Magazine Archive
The examination of 'Legger Kerper's records disclosed the names of many famed Philadelphians, presumably bigwigs who had dickered with him.
From Time Magazine Archive
So, having satisfied myself, I made him an offer for the place, we dickered a bit and then closed.
From The Boy Ranchers in Death Valley or Diamond X and the Poison Mystery by Willard F. Baker
One reason is the endless, costly dickering among middlemen like Envision and UnitedHealth to make sure they get their share of the bucks sloshing around in the system.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 24, 2023
While he’s selling the infrastructure bill as evidence that Democrats can deliver, Biden still will have to contend with ongoing dickering on the other big item on his agenda — the social spending bill.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 7, 2021
The end result of the pay commission has been time and money wasted in court dickering over details that should have been hashed out publicly on the floor of the state Legislature.
From Washington Times ● Sep. 11, 2019
When we first meet him, he’s on the phone, dickering over the details of his recent purchase of the aforementioned plane, in which he plans to fly with his much younger, British fiancée to London.
From New York Times ● Dec. 3, 2015
One light from the ceiling was still hanging down by a wire, dickering and swinging back and forth, and every once in a while I could see stuff inside.
From "The Watsons Go to Birmingham" by Christopher Paul Curtis
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
