Farriery. Also 6–8 stiffle. [f. STIFLE sb.1] trans. To affect (a horse, dog, etc.) with stifle or dislocation of the stifle-bone. Chiefly in passive. Hence Stifled ppl. a.
1580. Blundevil, Curing Horses Dis., cxxiv. 56 b. The Horse is said to be stiffled when the stiffling bone is remooued from the right place. But if it be not remooued nor losened, and yet the Horse halteth by meanes of some griefe there, then we say that the Horse is hurt in the stiffle, and not stiffled.
1607. Markham, Cavel., VII. lxxvi. 77. If hee halt behinde, he is hipped or stiffled, if he be hipped hee is past cure, if stifled [etc.].
1639. T. de Gray, Compl. Horsem. (1656), 595. Take a cord and fasten it to the pastern of the stifled legge.
1685. Dangerfield, Mem., 7 March, 32. I went … thence to Ashfield, where I Stifled my Horse.
1859. H. H. Dixon, Silk & Scarlet, 325. But we are forgetting Tarquin [a foxhound], who became stifled at Berkeley.
