stickle

noun

1. A sharp point; prickle; a spine
2. (British, dialectal)A shallow rapid in a river.

   “He swam through the plying poles of the stickle, and ran over the shallow, reaching safe water before the pack came down. He was young and fast and strong.”

3. (British, dialectal)The current below a waterfall.

   “[P]atient Anglers ſtanding all the day / Neere to ſome ſhallovv ſtickle or deepe bay.”

adj

1. Steep; high; inaccessible.
2. (UK, dialectal)High, as the water of a river; swollen; sweeping; rapid.

verb

1. (British, dialectal, obsolete)To act as referee or arbiter; to mediate.
2. (British, 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.’”

3. (British, 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.”

4. (British, dialectal, obsolete, transitive)To separate, as combatants; hence, to quiet, to appease, as disputants.

   “Which [question] violently they pursue, / Nor stickled would they be.”

5. (British, 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.”

6. (British, 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.”

7. (British, dialectal, intransitive, obsolete)To contend, contest, or altercate, especially in a pertinacious manner on insufficient grounds.

   “Fortune, as she’s wont, turned fickle, / And for the foe began to stickle.”

   “for paltry punk they roar and stickle”

   “the obstinacy with which he stickles for the wrong”