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.
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 (?), 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.
Hear it pronounced