\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.

\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\, 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.