stickle

plural stickles

1. A sharp point; prickle; a spine

comparative more stickle · superlative most stickle

1. Steep; high; inaccessible.
2. UKdialectalHigh, as the water of a river; swollen; sweeping; rapid.

plural stickles

1. UKdialectalA shallow rapid in a river.

   He swam through the plying poles of the stickle, and ran over the shallow, reaching safe water before the pack came down. He was young and fast and strong.

   1927, Henry William Williamson, Tarka the Otter, Chapter 19

2. UKdialectalThe current below a waterfall.

   [P]atient Anglers ſtanding all the day / Neere to ſome ſhallovv ſtickle or deepe bay.

   1616, William Browne, “The Fifth Song”, in Britannia’s Pastorals. The Second Booke, London: […] Thomas Snodham for George Norton, […], →OCLC, page 143

present singular third person stickles · participle present stickling · participle past stickled · past stickled

1. UKdialectalobsoleteTo act as referee or arbiter; to mediate.
2. UKarchaicdialectalTo argue or struggle for.

   ‘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.’

   1897, Henry James, What Maisie Knew

3. UKdialectalTo raise objections; to argue stubbornly, especially over minor or trivial matters.

   Miserable new Berline! Why could not Royalty go in some old Berline similar to that of other men? Flying for life, one does not stickle about his vehicle.

   1837, Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, (please specify the book or page number)

4. UKdialectalobsoletetransitiveTo separate, as combatants; hence, to quiet, to appease, as disputants.

   Which [question] violently they pursue, / Nor stickled would they be.

   1630, Michael Drayton, The Muses' Elizium

5. UKdialectalobsoletetransitiveTo 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.

   The New Arcadia

   c. 1580 (date written), Philippe Sidnei [i.e., Philip Sidney], “[The First Booke] Chapter 1”, in [Fulke Greville; Matthew Gwinne; John Florio], editors, The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia [The New Arcadia], London: […] [John Windet] for William Ponsonbie, published 1590, →OCLC, folio 9, recto

6. UKdialectalintransitiveobsoleteTo separate combatants by intervening.

   When he [the angel] sees half of the Christians are already killed, and all the rest in a fair way to be routed, [he]stickles betwixt the remainders of God’s host, and the race of fiends.

   1693, Decimus Junius Juvenalis, John Dryden, transl., “[The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis.] The Satyr”, in The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis. Translated into English Verse. […] Together with the Satires of Aulus Persius Flaccus. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson […], →OCLC

7. UKdialectalintransitiveobsoleteTo contend, contest, or altercate, especially in a pertinacious manner on insufficient grounds.

   for paltry punk they roar and stickle

   1684, John Dryden, To The Disappointment

   2 more examples

   Fortune, as she’s wont, turned fickle, / And for the foe began to stickle.

   1662 (indicated as 1663), [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678; republished in A[lfred] R[ayney] Waller, editor, Hudibras: Written in the Time of the Late Wars, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: University Press, 1905, →OCLC

   the obstinacy with which he stickles for the wrong

   c. 1817, William Hazlitt, Character of John Bull

plural Stickles

1. A surname.