stickle
Americanverb (used without object)
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to argue or haggle insistently, especially on trivial matters.
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to raise objections; scruple; demur.
verb
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to dispute stubbornly, esp about minor points
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to refuse to agree or concur, esp by making petty stipulations
Etymology
Origin of stickle
1520–30; variant of obsolete stightle to set in order, frequentative of stight to set in order, Middle English stighten, Old English stihtan to arrange; cognate with German stiften, Old Norse stētta to set up
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Classicists from Nick's, who stickle for the traditions of the Chicago Style, nodded their heads in austere approval.
From Time Magazine Archive
To all of them�pro-Nazi, anti-Nazi, pro-French or pro-League�the present seems no time to stickle.
From Time Magazine Archive
Meanwhile in London His Majesty's Government continued to stickle for the oath in a sharp note to the Irish Free State, so sharp that last week neither sender nor receiver would divulge the contents.
From Time Magazine Archive
Do you think a Silenus would hesitate and stickle and scruple over a point of honor; though some of us have seen Silenus blunder into a paradise which he promptly transformed into a sty?
From The Freebooters of the Wilderness by Laut, Agnes C. (Agnes Christina)
Browne's Pastoral, "The Squirrel Hunt," we read of— "Patient anglers, standing all the day Near to some shallow stickle, or deep bay."
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
