Forms: 5 stykylbak, 6 sticklebanke, -banck, 6–7 stickle bag(ge, 7 stit(t)le bag(ge, 8 stittle-back, 7–9 stickleback, 7– stickleback. [f. OE. sticel prick, sting + BACK sb.1 Cf. the synonymous banstickle, stanstickle, stickling, tittlebat, prickleback, -bag (N. Irel. spricklebag).] A small spiny-finned fish, of the genus Gasterosteus or family Gasterosteidæ. The common three-spined stickleback, G. aculeatus, is found in both fresh and salt water.
Sea stickleback: see SEA sb. 23 d.
14[?]. Burlesque, in Reliq. Antiq., I. 85. The borbottus and the stykylbakys.
1552. Huloet, Sticklyng or stickle bagge fishe.
1599. Nashe, Lenten Stuffe, B 1. The silliest millers thombe or contemptible stickle-banck.
1611. Cotgr., Artiere, the Sharpling, Stickling, or Sticklebacke.
a. 1616. Beaum. & Fl., Wit at Sev. Weapons, V. i. I have been seven mile in length, along the new River; I have seene a hundred stickle bags.
1647–60. Hexham, Tobaes,… a kind of Prick-fish, or Stitle bagge.
1653. Walton, Angler, iv. 97. A small Loch, or a Sticklebag.
1656. H. More, Enthus. Tri., Observ. 139. No fish, not so much as a small Stittle-bag.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Stittle-back.
1769. Pennant, Brit. Zool., III. 217.
1799. A. Young, Agric. Linc., 259. Manuring…. Sticklebacks in the East and West fens [are] so numerous, that a man has made 4s. a day by selling them at a halfpenny a bushel.
1896. Lydekker, Roy. Nat. Hist., V. 403. The sticklebacks have the honour not only of representing a genus (Gastrosteus), but likewise a family by themselves.
