stickle English
Verb
( en-verb)
(obsolete) To act as referee or arbiter; to mediate.
To argue or struggle (for).
* 1897 , Henry James, What Maisie Knew :
- ‘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.’
To raise objections; to argue stubbornly, especially over minor or trivial matters.
(obsolete) To separate, as combatants; hence, to quiet, to appease, as disputants.
* Drayton
- Which [question] violently they pursue, / Nor stickled would they be.
(obsolete) To intervene in; to stop, or put an end to, by intervening.
* Sir Philip Sidney
- They ran to him, and, pulling him back by force, stickled that unnatural fray.
(obsolete) To separate combatants by intervening.
* Dryden
- 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.
(obsolete) To contend, contest, or altercate, especially in a pertinacious manner on insufficient grounds.
* Hudibras
- Fortune, as she's wont, turned fickle, / And for the foe began to stickle .
* Dryden
- for paltry punk they roar and stickle
* Hazlitt
- the obstinacy with which he stickles for the wrong
Related terms
* stickler
Noun
( en noun)
(UK, dialect) A shallow rapid in a river.
(UK, dialect) The current below a waterfall.
* W. Browne
- Patient anglers, standing all the day / Near to some shallow stickle or deep bay.
External links
*
*
*
Anagrams
*
*
|
demur English
Verb
( demurr)
(obsolete) To linger; to stay; to tarry
* Nicols
- Yet durst not demur nor abide upon the camp.
To delay; to pause; to suspend proceedings or judgment in view of a doubt or difficulty; to hesitate; to put off the determination or conclusion of an affair.
* Hayward
- Upon this rub, the English embassadors thought fit to demur .
To scruple or object; to take exception; to oppose; to balk
- I demur to that statement.
- The personnel demurred at the management's new scheme.
(legal) To interpose a demurrer.
(obsolete) To suspend judgment concerning; to doubt of or hesitate about
- The latter I demur , for in their looks / Much reason, and in their actions, oft appears. -
(obsolete) To cause delay to; to put off
* Quarles
- He demands a fee, / And then demurs me with a vain delay.
Related terms
* demurrage
* demurrer
Noun
( en noun)
Stop; pause; hesitation as to proceeding; suspense of decision or action; scruple.
- All my demurs but double his attacks; At last he whispers, ``Do; and we go snacks.'' -
* 2004 , (Richard Fortey), The Earth , Folio Society 2011, p. 132:
- Most geologists today would accept such evidence without demur , but it was still ‘fringe’ science when du Toit was publishing.
Derived terms
* demureness
References
----
|
