stickle
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈstɪk(ə)l/
rhymes: -ɪkəl
Forms: form: stickles
form: stickling
form: stickled
form: stickled
Etymology: 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”).
Senses: glosses: To act as referee or arbiter; to mediate.
examples: text: ‘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.’
ref: 1897, Henry James, What Maisie Knew:
glosses: To argue or struggle for.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 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):
glosses: To raise objections; to argue stubbornly, especially over minor or trivial matters.
examples: text: Which [question] violently they pursue, / Nor stickled would they be.
ref: 1630, Michael Drayton, The Muses' Elizium:
glosses: To separate, as combatants; hence, to quiet, to appease, as disputants.
examples: text: They ran to him, and, pulling him back by force, stickled that unnatural fray.
ref: 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:
english: The New Arcadia
translation: The New Arcadia
glosses: To intervene in; to stop, or put an end to, by intervening.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 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:
glosses: To separate combatants by intervening.
examples: text: Fortune, as she’s wont, turned fickle, / And for the foe began to stickle.
ref: 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:
text: for paltry punk they roar and stickle
ref: 1684, John Dryden, To The Disappointment:
text: the obstinacy with which he stickles for the wrong
ref: c. 1817, William Hazlitt, Character of John Bull:
glosses: To contend, contest, or altercate, especially in a pertinacious manner on insufficient grounds.
Derived terms: stickler