Word.ws English Dictionary

stickhandle

stickhandle verb: to maintain individual possession of the puck or ball by controlling it with movements of one's stick, especially to do so in a skillful manner.

Verb

stickhandle (third-person singular simple present stickhandles, present participle stickhandling, simple past and past participle stickhandled)

  1. (intransitive, transitive, field hockey) To maintain individual possession of the puck or ball by controlling it with movements of one's stick, especially to do so in a skillful manner.
    • Kovalev regained possession of the puck and stickhandled at full speed into neutral-zone open ice.2008 April 17, Dave Stubbs, “Lots of life left in Bruins”, in The Gazette, Montreal, retrieved 13 May 2008
  2. (Canada, broadly) To deal capably and swiftly with a situation, especially in a manner which deflects potential problems.
    • He has ducked questions in Parliament on everything from Afghan detainees to Radarsat 2, leaving them to be stickhandled by other ministers.2008, "Editorial: Hillier goes, not Bernier, Toronto Star, 16 Apr. (retrieved 13 May 2008)
    • Obama, on the other hand, stickhandled his preacher problem and retained his poise and dignity.2008 May 8, Diane Francis, “Obama vs McCain. Finally”, in National Post, Canada, retrieved 13 May 2008

Forms of stickhandle

third-person singular presentstickhandles
present participlestickhandling
past participlestickhandled
paststickhandled

Origin of stickhandle

From stick + handle.

Questions about stickhandle

What does stickhandle mean?
Stickhandle means to maintain individual possession of the puck or ball by controlling it with movements of one's stick, especially to do so in a skillful manner.
What part of speech is stickhandle?
Stickhandle is a verb.
What is the past tense of stickhandle?
The past tense of stickhandle is stickhandled.

Words near stickhandle in the dictionary

  1. stickfigure
  2. stickfigures
  3. stickfrog
  4. stickful
  5. stickfuls
  6. stickhandle
  7. stickhandled
  8. stickhandler
  9. stickhandlers
  10. stickhandles
  11. stickhandling

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stickhandle (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “stickhandle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/stickhandle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.