Stickle
Pronunciation
- UK IPA: /ˈstɪk(ə)l/
- Rhymes: -ɪkəl
Origin
Variant of stightle.
Full definition of stickle
Verb
- (obsolete) To act as referee or arbiter; to mediate.
- (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.’
- To raise objections; to argue stubbornly, especially over minor or trivial matters.
- (transitive, obsolete) To separate, as combatants; hence, to quiet, to appease, as disputants.
- DraytonWhich question violently they pursue,
Nor stickled would they be. - (transitive, obsolete) To intervene in; to stop, or put an end to, by intervening.
- Sir Philip SidneyThey ran to him, and, pulling him back by force, stickled that unnatural fray.
- (intransitive, obsolete) To separate combatants by intervening.
- DrydenWhen he 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.
- (intransitive, obsolete) To contend, contest, or altercate, especially in a pertinacious manner on insufficient grounds.
- HudibrasFortune, as she's wont, turned fickle,
And for the foe began to stickle. - Drydenfor paltry punk they roar and stickle
- Hazlittthe obstinacy with which he stickles for the wrong