[f. STICKY a.1 + -NESS.] Stiffness, woodenness. (Chiefly with reference to athletics.)
1910. Evening News, 12 March, 2/6. The rapid improvement of the Light Blues [i.e., the Cambridge boat crew], contrasted with the ‘stickiness’ of their rivals.
1911. Marett, Anthropol., v. 143. It would prove an endless task if I were to try here to illustrate at all extensively the stickiness, as one might almost call it, of primitive modes of speech.
1912. World, 7 May, Suppl. 2/2. For spectators the abolition of ‘offside’ means a game without any of the old ‘stickiness.’
