Stickling

2 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Stickle \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.]
        [1913 Webster]


  
              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.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. To contend, contest, or altercate, esp. in a pertinacious
        manner on insufficient grounds.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              Fortune, as she 's wont, turned fickle,
              And for the foe began to stickle.     --Hudibras.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              While for paltry punk they roar and stickle.
                                                    --Dryden.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              The obstinacy with which he stickles for the wrong.
                                                    --Hazlitt.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     3. To play fast and loose; to pass from one side to the
        other; to trim.
        [1913 Webster]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  43 Moby Thesaurus words for "stickling":
     bashful, bashfulness, boggle, boggling, cautious, compunction,
     demur, demurral, demurring, diffidence, diffident, falter,
     faltering, hesitance, hesitancy, hesitant, hesitating, hesitation,
     jibbing, modest, modesty, objection, pause, protest, qualm,
     qualm of conscience, qualmish, qualmishness, recoil, scruple,
     scrupling, scrupulosity, scrupulous, scrupulousness,
     shilly-shallying, shrinking, shy, shyness, squeamish, sticking,
     straining, tentative, timid