stickfastn.adj.

1610 G. Markham Maister-peece ii. xliii. 285 These stickfasts, or hornes that grow vpon a horses skinne vnder the saddle, is a certaine dead skin like a hard peece of leather, growing fast into the flesh.

1704 Dict. Rusticum Sit-fast, or Stick-fast, an hard Knob, even as hard as an Horn, that grows in an Horse's skin, under the Saddle, fast to his Flesh, that comes by a Saddle-gall or bruise.

1898 A. Liautard tr. P. J. Cadiot & J. Almy Treat. Surg. Therapeutics Domest. Animals I. iii. i. 226 Stickfasts are prevented by watching the condition of the harness and its paddings.

1906 F. S. Cooley Sketch Devel. Mod. Horse 28 One of my customers has just cured his horse of a stick fast.

1827 Edinb. Med. & Surg. Jrnl. 28 209 There are in the clinical wards patients labouring under obstinate chronic diseases, who are so uncivil that they will neither die nor recover, such patients as Dr Cullen used emphatically to call the stick-fasts of a clinical ward.

1828 Retrosp. Rev. 2 60 Woodcock is..an egregious stickfast, abounding in loving phrases, which he cannot forbear even in the extremity of anger.

1887 C. H. Richards in W. Gladden Parish Probl. 312 Experience shows that there are periods when the interest in religion is much greater than at other times... But when the tide rises,..these stick-fasts and waverers are easily brought into the harbor.

1947 Advertiser (Adelaide) 19 Aug. 4/3 Truly the poor old wheat is a great political football, kicked about by ‘has beens’, ‘would be's’ and ‘stickfasts’.

1835 C. J. Latrobe Rambler in N. Amer. II. iv. 53 We only reached Milledgeville..after three days and nights incessant travel, and that after a goodly proportion of break-downs, and stick-fasts.

1863 W. C. Baldwin Afr. Hunting iv. 110 After..a couple of stick-fasts, got on to the missionaries.

1871 Cornhill Mag. Apr. 459 The wheels on one side have sunk above the naves into a rut of exceptional depth, and that melancholy but common experience, a ‘stickfast’, has occurred.

1916 M. A. Stobart Flaming Sword Serbia 100 We were up at 3.30 a.m., fortunately, as we had many stickfasts on the way, but we were established in our tents by the evening.

1819 Sporting Mag. 5 93 And dash and plunge through Belvoir's stick-fast vale.

1831 Mirror of Parl. (2nd Portion, 1st Sess., 9th Parl.) 2 1199/1 There could not be anything more revolutionary than our adopting the stickfast propositions suggested by the opponents of this measure.

1868 Engineering 7 Feb. 105/3 Many of the leading English locomotive engineers, not, of course, of the stickfast school, but men like Mr. Williams Adams, [etc.].

1893 Chambers's Jrnl. 5 Aug. 493/2 She were a stickfast sort of a one; and once her heart was given, it warn't took back.

1924 J. Galsworthy White Monkey iii. ii. 236 With the most stickfast of all the national temperaments, we're holding on to what's gone more bust for us than for any other country.

1981 Washington Post 4 June (District Weekly section) 2 Wanda was such a stickfast, steadfast person, the kind you develop a rapport with very easily.

1912 P. T. Woods Open-air Poultry Houses for all Climates viii. 75 In the south where the soil is rather sandy, the stick-fast flea is a most pestiferous insect and annoys man and fowl alike.

1954 Jrnl. Hygiene 52 47 The rabbits were infested with the stickfast flea (Echidnophaga myrmecobii Rothsch.) which they had shown was able to transmit the disease.

2012 N. Murtagh Backyard Duck Bk. (rev. ed.) x. 111 The complete life cycle of the stickfast flea is about 4 weeks.