Stickle word meaning and definition

[verb] dispute or argue stubbornly (especially minor points)

\Stic"kle\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. {Stickled}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Stickling}.] [Probably fr. OE. stightlen, sti?tlen, to dispose, arrange, govern, freq. of stihten, AS. stihtan: cf. G. stiften to found, to establish.] 1. To separate combatants by intervening. [Obs.] 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. --Dryden. 2. To contend, contest, or altercate, esp. in a pertinacious manner on insufficient grounds. Fortune, as she 's wont, turned fickle, And for the foe began to stickle. --Hudibras. While for paltry punk they roar and stickle. --Dryden. The obstinacy with which he stickles for the wrong. --Hazlitt. 3. To play fast and loose; to pass from one side to the other; to trim.
\Stic"kle\, v. t. 1. To separate, as combatants; hence, to quiet, to appease, as disputants. [Obs.] Which [question] violently they pursue, Nor stickled would they be. --Drayton. 2. To intervene in; to stop, or put an end to, by intervening; hence, to arbitrate. [Obs.] They ran to him, and, pulling him back by force, stickled that unnatural fray. --Sir P. Sidney.
\Stic"kle\, n. [Cf. {stick}, v. t. & i.] A shallow rapid in a river; also, the current below a waterfall. [Obs. or Prov. Eng.] Patient anglers, standing all the day Near to some shallow stickle or deep bay. --W. Browne.

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