stickle

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈstɪk(ə)l/

  • Audio (Southern England):

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• Rhymes: -ɪkəl

From Middle English *stikel, *stykyl (in compounds), from Old English sticel (“a prickle, sting, goad”), from Proto-Germanic *stiklaz, *stikilaz (“sting, stinger, peak, cup, goblet”), related to the verb *stikaną (“to stick”). Cognate with Dutch stekel, Icelandic stikill, Gothic 𐍃𐍄𐌹𐌺𐌻𐍃 (stikls) (whence Russian стекло́ (stekló, “glass”), Lithuanian stìklas).

stickle (plural stickles)

1. A sharp point; prickle; a spine

• stickleback
• stickly

From Middle English stikel, from Old English sticel, sticol (“high, lofty, steep, reaching great heights, inaccessible”), from Proto-Germanic *stikulaz, *stikkulaz (“high, steep”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)teyg- (“to stick; peak”).

stickle (comparative more stickle, superlative most stickle)

2. Steep; high; inaccessible.
3. (UK, dialect) High, as the water of a river; swollen; sweeping; rapid.

stickle (plural stickles) (British, dialectal)

1. A shallow rapid in a river.
2. The current below a waterfall.
   • 1616, William Browne, “The Fourth Song”, in Britannia’s Pastorals. The Second Booke, London: […] Iohn Haviland, published 1625, →OCLC, page 143:

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

From a variant of stightle (“to order, arrange, direct”), from Middle English stightelen, stiȝtlen, stihilen, stihlen, equivalent to stight (“to order, rule, govern”) +‎ -le (frequentative suffix).

For the development of /təl/ to /kəl/, compare huckleberry and dialectal turkle (“turtle”).

stickle (third-person singular simple present stickles, present participle stickling, simple 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 […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, (please specify the book or page number):

     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.

4. (transitive, obsolete) To separate, as combatants; hence, to quiet, to appease, as disputants.
   • 1630, Michael Drayton, The Muses' Elizium:

     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.
   • 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:

     They ran to him, and, pulling him back by force, stickled that unnatural fray.

6. (intransitive, obsolete) To separate combatants by intervening.
   • 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: Printed for Jacob Tonson […], →OCLC:

     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.

7. (intransitive, obsolete) To contend, contest, or altercate, especially in a pertinacious manner on insufficient grounds.
   • 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:

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

   • 1684, John Dryden, To The Disappointment:

     for paltry punk they roar and stickle

   • c. 1817, William Hazlitt, Character of John Bull:

     the obstinacy with which he stickles for the wrong

• stickler

• “stickle”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “stickle”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “stickle”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

• Stickel, Tickles, icklest, lickest, tickles