cudgel
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
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A growing number of self-described creatives wield legal protections, legitimate and non, as a cudgel against others.
From Salon ● Jul. 7, 2026
The administration again turned to trade as a tool to achieve various aims and as a cudgel.
From Barron's ● Mar. 4, 2026
But some experts say such fees cannot be used as a cudgel to punish players that break a contract and transfer.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 24, 2025
Nor should it be used as a cudgel, like “The Little List” in “The Mikado.”
From MarketWatch ● Dec. 8, 2025
He swings a heavy cudgel Whenever he walks out.
From "Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices from a Medieval Village" by Laura Amy Schlitz
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
Their stand-up turns jokes into cudgels to break down racism, homophobia and systemic discrimination, but they also tend to be more comfortable than many comics in delaying punch lines in service of an argument.
From New York Times ● Jun. 26, 2018
Larson has explained, is that the framers were concerned that accusations of treason not be transformed into criminal cudgels against political enemies.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 5, 2018
Battle is waged with cudgels gripped by velvet gloves in the strange world of football.
From BBC ● Sep. 13, 2015
Watchmen were much in evidence, moving in pairs through the alleys in their gold cloaks and shirts of black ringmail, iron cudgels never far from their hands.
From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin
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 also added that he once bound Isegrim to the rope of the convent bell at Elkinar, where his frantic tugging rang the bell, until the monks, crowding around him, cudgeled him severely.
From Legends of the Middle Ages Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art by H. A. (Hélène Adeline) Guerber
Dollars & Scents In Manhattan prominent artists cudgelled their imaginations for the perfect perfume bottle.
From Time Magazine Archive
No, you would never guess," replied Dauntrees, "if you cudgelled your brains from now till Christmas.
From Rob of the Bowl, Vol. I (of 2) A Legend of St. Inigoe's by John P. Kennedy
He cudgelled his brains for some device by which a message might be conveyed in safety, and could only think of the sweeper.
From The Outcaste by F. E. Penny
I cudgelled my brains for some excuse, my recollections for some achievement, however slight, which might outweigh my indiscretion.
From Lawrence Clavering by A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley) Mason
His mother fled the house, and the rabble entered, and so cudgelled Pablo that he was fain to return to the inn; and, after being groomed, he allowed the archbishop to mount him.
From Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes Spanish and Portuguese Folklore by Various
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
That was followed by Black Snow, a cudgeling of Stanislavsky.
From Time Magazine Archive
"Um-hum!" assented Shorty, cudgeling his brain as to what he should next write.
From Si Klegg, Book 6 (of 6) Si And Shorty, With Their Boy Recruits, Enter On The Atlanta Campaign by John McElroy
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
And there I was, cudgelling my muddy brains for some excuse, because I thought you were staying in the town.”
From Harley Greenoak's Charge by Bertram Mitford
I asked myself; and it was only after cudgelling my brains for several minutes that I found I had re-invented Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler.
From Dramatic Technique by George Pierce Baker
Vocabulary lists containing cudgel
Twelfth Night
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The Merchant of Venice
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Tolkien Reading Day, List 9
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