English
stickle
see also: Stickle
Pronunciation
  • (British) IPA: /ˈstɪk(ə)l/
Noun

stickle (plural stickles)

  1. A sharp point; prickle; a spine
Adjective

stickle

  1. steep; high; inaccessible
  2. (UK, dialect) high, as the water of a river; swollen; sweeping; rapid
Noun

stickle (plural stickles)

  1. (UK, dialect) A shallow rapid in a river.
  2. (UK, dialect) The current below a waterfall.
    • Patient anglers, standing all the day / Near to some shallow stickle or deep bay.
Verb

stickle (stickles, present participle stickling; past and past participle stickled)

  1. (obsolete) To act as referee or arbiter; to mediate.
  2. (now rare) To argue or struggle for.
    • 1897, Henry James, What Maisie Knew
      ‘She has other people than poor little you to think about, and has gone abroad with them; so you needn’t be in the least afraid she’ll stickle this time for her rights.’
  3. To raise objections; to argue stubbornly, especially over minor or trivial matters.
    • 1837, Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History
      Miserable new Berlin (carriage)! Why could not Louis XVI go in some old Berline similar to that of other men? Flight to Varennes, one does not stickle about his vehicle.
  4. (transitive, obsolete) To separate, as combatants; hence, to quiet, to appease, as disputants.
    • Which [question] violently they pursue, / Nor stickled would they be.
  5. (transitive, obsolete) To intervene in; to stop, or put an end to, by intervening.
    • They ran to him, and, pulling him back by force, stickled that unnatural fray.
  6. (intransitive, obsolete) To separate combatants by intervening.
    • When he [the angel] sees half of the Christians killed, and the rest in a fair way of being routed, he stickles betwixt the remainder of God’s host and the race of fiends.
  7. (intransitive, obsolete) To contend, contest, or altercate, especially in a pertinacious manner on insufficient grounds.
    • Fortune, as she’s wont, turned fickle, / And for the foe began to stickle.
    • for paltry punk they roar and stickle
    • the obstinacy with which he stickles for the wrong
Stickle
Proper noun
  1. Surname


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