sticking-place

sticking-place

The issue or point that halts forward progress. I have a feeling that this section of the contract will be a sticking-place, as neither of them wants to concede any funds to the other.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
See also:
  • stick to
  • stick to (something)
  • have the feeling
  • a/the feeling (that) (something is/will be the case)
  • bad feeling
  • bad/ill feeling
  • Are you feeling better?
  • I just have this feeling
  • ill feeling
  • a bit out of it
References in periodicals archive
TO KILL A KING But screw your courage to the sticking-place, And we'll not fail.
The Lady and the revamp: Writer reboots Mrs Macbeth claiming the Bard did her no favours; Novelist bids to repair the reputation of Shakespeare's royal wife who has become a watchword for ruthless, blood-soaked ambition
Lady Macbeth's seeming inability to name "the place" where the murder was committed recalls her earlier reference to "the sticking-place." Faced with her husband's intransigence in the matter of Duncan's murder she urges him to "But screw your courage to the sticking-place / And we'll not fail" (1.7.60-1)--rousing words to which she promptly adds the further reassurance that Duncan's two warders will be so surfeited with wine "That memory, the warder of the brain, / Shall be a fume [...] When in swinish sleep / Their drenched natures lie as in a death" (1.7.65-68).
"Compunctious visitings": conscience as unequivocal witness in Macbeth
IMPORTANT ROLE Sir Ian McKellen, patron of the Little Theatre Guild of Great Britain is keen to support amateur theatre groups across Britain SCREW YOUR COURAGE TO THE STICKING-PLACE Andrew Barella and Corinne Kilvington will play Macbeth and Lady Macbeth
Sir Ian contented with crowd scene; Leading actor to attend community theatre's Macbeth
Was it not possible for Gordon Brown to, as the Scottish Play has it, screw his courage to the sticking-place and decide that the first Speaker driven from office for over 300 years would not go to the Lords?
Wrong move, Gordon
When he asks, "If we should fail?" and she answers, "But screw your courage to the sticking-place and we'll not fail," we feel the absence of a co-star more keenly than at any other time in the evening.
Macbeth (a Modern Ecstasy)
TONY Blair has finally screwed his courage to the sticking-place, and we must follow his lead.
Election 2001: APATHY IS THE REAL ENEMY