Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Stickle

Stic′kle, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Stickled; p. pr. & vb. n. Stickling.] [Probably fr. OE. stightlen, stiȝtlen, 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.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.