Stickle

Definition of Stickle

Stic´kle

v. i.	1.	To separate combatants by intervening. [imp. & p. p. Stickled ; p. pr. & vb. n. Stickling.] 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.
v. t.	1.	To separate, as combatants; hence, to quiet, to appease, as disputants. 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. They ran to him, and, pulling him back by force, stickled that unnatural fray. - Sir P. Sidney.
n.	1.	A shallow rapid in a river; also, the current below a waterfall. Patient anglers, standing all the day Near to some shallow stickle or deep bay. - W. Browne.

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