stickling

Verb

stickle (third-person singular simple present stickles, present participle stickling, simple past and past participle stickled)

1. (UK, dialectal, obsolete) To act as referee or arbiter; to mediate.
2. (UK, archaic, dialectal) To argue or struggle for.
   • ‘She has other people than poor little you to think about, and has gone abroad with them; so you needn’t be in the least afraid she’ll stickle this time for her rights.’1897, Henry James, What Maisie Knew
3. (UK, dialectal) To raise objections; to argue stubbornly, especially over minor or trivial matters.
   • Miserable new Berline! Why could not Royalty go in some old Berline similar to that of other men? Flying for life, one does not stickle about his vehicle.1837, Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, (please specify the book or page number)
4. (UK, dialectal, obsolete, transitive) To separate, as combatants; hence, to quiet, to appease, as disputants.
   • Which [question] violently they pursue, / Nor stickled would they be.1630, Michael Drayton, The Muses' Elizium
5. (UK, dialectal, obsolete, transitive) To intervene in; to stop, or put an end to, by intervening.
   • They ran to him, and, pulling him back by force, stickled that unnatural fray.c. 1580 (date written), Philippe Sidnei [i.e., Philip Sidney], “[The First Booke] Chapter 1”, in [Fulke Greville; Matthew Gwinne; John Florio], editors, The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia [The New...
6. (UK, dialectal, intransitive, obsolete) To separate combatants by intervening.
   • When he [the angel] sees half of the Christians are already killed, and all the rest in a fair way to be routed, [he]stickles betwixt the remainders of God’s host, and the race of fiends.1693, Decimus Junius Juvenalis, John Dryden, transl., “[The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis.] The Satyr”, in The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis. Translated into English Verse. […] Together...

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