dicker
UK/ˈdɪkə(ɹ)//ˈdɪkɚ/
dicker verb: to bargain, haggle or negotiate over a sale.
Verb
dicker (third-person singular simple present dickers, present participle dickering, simple past and past participle dickered)
- To bargain, haggle or negotiate over a sale.
- At Bouira the detachment detrained, and the balance of the journey was made in the saddle. As Tarzan was dickering at Bouira for a mount he caught a brief glimpse of a man in European clothes eying him from the doorway of a native coffeehouse, […]1913 June–December, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Dancing Girl of Sidi Aissa”, in The Return of Tarzan, New York, N.Y.: A[lbert] L[evi] Burt Company, […], published March 1915, →OCLC, page 88
- 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.1941, Emily Carr, chapter 6, in Klee Wyck
- To barter.
- 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.1848, James Fenimore Cooper, chapter 2, in The Oak Openings
- To fiddle.
- 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.1981, Jack Cady, Singleton
Noun
dicker (countable and uncountable, plural dickers)
- A unit of measure, consisting of 10 of some object, particularly hides and skins.
- 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.1599, attributed to Thomas Heywood, Edward IV, Part One, Act III, Scene 1, https://books.google.ca/books?id=d_MuAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
- 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.1866, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, volume 1, page 171
- A chaffering, barter, or exchange, of small wares.
- to make a dicker
- “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?1856, John Greenleaf Whittier, The Panorama
dicker meaning in Tamil
dicker in Tamil
- பேரம் பேசுதல், பத்துரு
Synonyms of dicker
Forms of dicker
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | dickers |
| present participle | dickering |
| past participle | dickered |
| past | dickered |
| Noun | |
| plural | dickers |
Origin of dicker
From Middle English diker (“measure of ten”), from Late Latin dacra (“a dicker”), from Latin decuria (“a ten of something”), from decem (“ten”).
Words formed from dicker
Words that rhyme with dicker
Questions about dicker
- What does dicker mean?
- Dicker means to bargain, haggle or negotiate over a sale.
- What is dicker in Tamil?
- Dicker in Tamil is பேரம் பேசுதல், பத்துரு. See Dicker meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is dicker?
- Dicker can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce dicker?
- Dicker is pronounced /ˈdɪkə(ɹ)/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of dicker?
- The past tense of dicker is dickered.
Words near dicker in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: dicker (page history and authors); dicker (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-dicker.ogg.
Cite this entry: “dicker.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dicker. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.