cudgel

But they’re part of a growing number of self-described creatives who wield legal protections, legitimate and non, as a cudgel against others.

From Salon ● Jul. 7, 2026

Another was to give investors such as government pension funds a cudgel to pressure companies into reducing CO2 emissions.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 29, 2026

The administration again turned to trade as a tool to achieve various aims and as a cudgel.

From Barron's ● Mar. 4, 2026

Nor should it be used as a cudgel, like “The Little List” in “The Mikado.”

From MarketWatch ● Dec. 8, 2025

Sharp-eyed and quick with the cudgel, Hoede would say.

From "Six of Crows" by Leigh Bardugo

This scene emphasizes the film’s “savor every moment” theme that “We Live in Time” relentlessly cudgels viewers with for 108 endless minutes.

From Salon ● Oct. 11, 2024

These days, when a proposal leads people to lay down their partisan cudgels and cooperate, it must be an exceptionally good idea.

From Washington Post ● Feb. 6, 2018

Battle is waged with cudgels gripped by velvet gloves in the strange world of football.

From BBC ● Sep. 13, 2015

Licenses do serve as legal cudgels to protect practitioners from competition.

From New York Times ● Jan. 27, 2015

The grounds came to life with teeming swarms of Guerrilla Shrews armed to the teeth with rapiers, cudgels and slings.

From "Redwall" by Brian Jacques

The action may not be as important as the message — that people deserved to be treated with respect and dignity — but that message is cudgeled into viewers.

From Salon ● Dec. 23, 2020

It is only with some remove that this array gives up its scatter graph specificity and can be cudgeled into a best fit line.

From Slate ● May 4, 2016

Exposition abounds, events that should be summarized drag out in tiresome scenes, what should be insinuated is instead cudgeled home.

From Slate ● Nov. 8, 2013

Holbrooke, having more or less imprisoned the delegations on the U.S. airbase at Dayton, Ohio, cudgeled them into grudging submission.

From Newsweek ● Dec. 14, 2010

He cudgeled his brains to find some way of meeting her again and meeting her often.

From The Terrible Twins by Edgar Jepson

Dollars & Scents In Manhattan prominent artists cudgelled their imaginations for the perfect perfume bottle.

From Time Magazine Archive

He fought with Tim Tearcoat, and cudgelled with Ben, And wrestled with Sampson—all quarrelsome men;— I was sorry to see him thus wasting his force On fellows who kicked with the heels of a horse.

From The Poems of Philip Freneau, Volume I (of III) by Philip Freneau

Charley cudgelled his brains continually, but for once his imagination failed him.

From Tales of the Fish Patrol by George Varian

And when he reached the door, he stopped; he dared not go in, but cudgelled his brain to find some pretext, some excuse, for calling.

From San-Cravate; or, The Messengers; Little Streams by Charles Paul de Kock

Capuzzi fell heavily to the ground and Pitichinaccio along with him, both raising a shrill piercing cry of distress and fear, like that of a whole troop of cudgelled asses.

From Weird Tales. Vol. I by E. T. A. (Ernst Theodor Amadeus) Hoffmann

That was followed by Black Snow, a cudgeling of Stanislavsky.

From Time Magazine Archive

On the other hand, their release of 214 Americans for combat would invite a propaganda cudgeling from China, ever eager to berate Moscow for betraying its allies in Hanoi.

From Time Magazine Archive

With the return of the buyer's market, every U.S. manufacturer is cudgeling his brain?and the brains of designers?to make his product work better, feel better, look better and sell better than those of his rivals.

From Time Magazine Archive

Mr. Lippmann is mistaken when he uses the map as a means of cudgeling our academic system of education.

From Time Magazine Archive

The man was cudgeling his brains for an excuse whereby he might carry her off in triumph to the Bois.

From A Son of the Immortals by Howard Chandler Christy

Stevens portrays Dickens at his desk, cudgelling his brains to find the name of the miser for his forthcoming tale.

From The Guardian ● Dec. 2, 2017

The contemporary guardians of culture have a habit of cudgelling anyone who might try to use culture for didactic ends or to open a subject up to a mass audience.

From BBC ● Jan. 7, 2011

Secretary Mellon wrote a "cudgelling," Are the "good times" so good?

From Time Magazine Archive

Until he became too fatigued to suffer his mind to dwell upon anything but his own discomfort, Sellon had been cudgelling his brains to solve the mystery of the resuscitated document, but in vain.

From Renshaw Fanning's Quest A Tale of the High Veldt by Bertram Mitford

But Dorothea didn't laugh; she was too busy cudgelling her brains.

From The Girls and I A Veracious History by Mrs. Molesworth