Also 6–8 stiffle. [Of obscure origin.
Connection with STIFF a. is commonly assumed, but is very doubtful.]
1. The joint at the junction of the hind leg and the body (between the femur and the tibia) in a horse or other quadruped: corresponding anatomically to the knee in man.
c. 1320. Sir Tristr., 487. [With reference to cutting up a deer.] To þe stifles he ȝede And euen ato hem schare.
1580. Blundevil, Curing Horses Dis., cxxii. 55 b. If a Horse halt behind, the griefe must either be in the hippe, in the stiffle, in the hough [etc.].
1726. Dict. Rust. (ed. 3), Gascoin, the hinder thigh of a Horse, which begins at the Stiffle.
1882. Daily Tel., 26 Oct., 3/6. Although kicked in the stifle at the post by Village Boy and badly lamed, Althotas repeated his Tuesday’s victory in the Stand Handicap.
1897. Encycl. Sport, I. 329/2. (Dogs) Stifle, the joint in a dog’s hind leg next to the buttock; the hip joint.
1907. Q. Rev., Jan., 204. The size of the bone at the ankles and stifles being particularly important [in the foxhound].
† 2. Dislocation or sprain of the stifle-joint. Obs.
Quot. 1587 seems erroneous.
1580. Blundevil, Curing Horses Dis., cxxiv. 56 b. The stiffle commeth by meanes of some side blowe, or some great straine, slipping, or sliding.
1587. Mascall, 2nd Bk. Cattell, Horses (1596), 124. For a stiffle in the heele of a horse.
3. Comb. stifle-bone, -cap, -pan, the patella of a horse, the bone in front of the stifle-joint; stifle-joint = sense 1; stifle-slip (see quot.).
1610. Markham, Masterp., II. lxxii. 338. If the horse be stifled, the *stifle bone will sticke out more of the one side then of the other.
1678. Lond. Gaz., No. 1321/4. With a white speck on the stifle bone on the far side.
1908. *Stifle cap [see quot. for stifle slip].
1580. Blundevil, Curing Horses Dis., cxxii. 55 b. If the griefe be in the stiffle, then the Horse in his going will cast the *stiffle ioint outward.
1888. M‘Fadyean, Comp. Anat. Dom. Anim., I. (1908), 199. The stifle joint corresponds to the knee of the human subject. The bones that enter into its formation are the femur, the tibia, and the patella.
1893. Earl Dunmore, Panirs, II. 75. I had no time to pick and choose, but fired at the last ram, hitting him in the hind leg, breaking it at the stifle joint.
c. 1720. W. Gibson, Farrier’s Guide, I. vi. (1738), 97. A small bone, somewhat round, called the Patella or *Stifle-pan.
1908. Animal Managem., 334. *Stifle slip, dislocation of the *stifle cap.
