[f. STICK v.1 + -ING2.] That sticks, in the senses of the verb.
1. That pierces or pricks (obs.); dial. of an animal, that gores.
c. 1230. Hali Meid., 35 (MS. Titus). Þat sar sorhfule angoise þat stronge & stikinde [v.r. stinkinde] stiche.
1577. Kendall, Flowers of Epigr., 89 b. By stickyng spurre doest seke to sturre thy steede.
1614. Gorges, Lucan, VII. 286. No sooner did their palfries feele, Within their brest the sticking steele, But [etc.].
1843. Richardson’s Borderer’s Table-bk., Leg. Div., I. 106. Should the sticking bull o’ the Stobbs com down amang the kye.
2. That adheres.
1651. Baxter, Inf. Bapt., 144. They say far more … then the most notorious scorners were wont to do; and that not in a bare scorn, which is less sticking, but in serious slanders.
1883. J. Parker, Tyne Chylde, 86. It’s a sticking leech you have laid on me.
1908. Westm. Gaz., 9 June, 4/2. [The] Mercédès … suffered from a sticking valve.
3. That projects. Only with advs. out, up.
1848. Curzon, Visit. Monast., IV. vii. (1897), 301. The sticking-up legs of the subverted table.
1902. R. Bagot, Donna Diana, viii. 98. The women with their great feet, and sticking-out teeth!
4. Special collocations: sticking-grass CLEAVERS; † sticking medicine (see quot.); sticking silk = COURT-PLASTER.
1671. Salmon, Syn. Med., III. xxvii. 471. Dropax, is a sticking Medicine, so called from Pitch, used with other sticking ingredients.
1760–72. H. Brooke, Fool of Qual. (1809), I. 18. Having found the wound, she put a small bit of black sticking silk to the orifice.
1844. H. Stephens, Bk. Farm., III. 942. The seed of the sticking-grass, or cleavers.
