dicker /DIK-ər/. verb or noun. To bargain or haggle. More generally to vacillate. As a noun, in an obsolete usage: a quantity of 10, usually furs or hides. Occasionally simply many or a lot. From Latin decuria (a bundle of 10) and Middle English dyker and Middle Low German dēker(quantity of 10).
“Behold, said Pas, a whole dicker of wit…” (Sir Philip Sidney)
“He did not believe in giving the dealer a large profit. In the midst of a dicker he would turn his terrific eyes full upon his visitor and exclaim: I have heard enough. I’ll take this at the price you paid plus fifteen per cent.” (Virginia Woolf)
“Do you really think you can go down there and dicker with some greaser pimp that buys and sells people outright like you was goin down to the courthouse lawn to trade knives?” (Cormac McCarthy)
“My word on’t, Bertrand, I struck no bargain with Lord Baltimore, nor dickered and haggled any quid pro quos, I’m no more Papist this morning than I was last week…” (John Barth)
“I revolt from, I am like, these savage foresters
whose passionless dicker in the shade, whose glance
impassive & scant, belie their murderous cries
when quarry seems to show.
(John Berryman)