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

To let the world shape your desire and love into a cudgel with which to drive you back into a cave of fear.

From "Beauty Queens" by Libba Bray

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

As Gabler reminded me, Winchell was an early and outspoken opponent of the Nazis and their American supporters and he considered ridicule one of his cudgels, most famously in his invented insult “Ratzis”.

From The Guardian ● Aug. 7, 2019

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

While many ad-blocking apps are now basically cudgels that obstruct all ads, he said he expected there would later be “customizable, free ad blockers with a feature that offers a whitelist for some ads.”

From New York Times ● Sep. 18, 2015

Some carried cudgels, others staves; all wore pleated skirts, leathern sandals, and patchwork cloaks sewn from squares of many colors to echo the many-colored bricks of Meereen.

From "A Dance with Dragons" 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

There was nothing particularly disconcerting about this, but it broke the continuity of his effort, it interfered with his memory, he halted, colored, and cudgeled his brains to find what came next.

From The Flag by Greene, Homer

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

From Time Magazine Archive

Eric, really interested in the baseball problem, cudgelled his brains, but could find no way out.

From The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers by Rolt-Wheeler, Francis

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 Kock, Charles Paul de

"An ye mean this lad who hath so well cudgelled Black Dick," said Coulter, "I dare be sworn he is not a sneak to turn informer upon us."

From William Shakespeare as he lived. An Historical Tale by Curling, Henry

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

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

From Time Magazine Archive

With competition in the U.S. television industry growing hotter by the day, manufacturers were cudgeling their brains for new ways to trim costs and prices.

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

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

It was our task—Edward's and mine—to make the thing "pay," and to that end both of us were cudgeling our brains by day and by night to devise means.

From Recollections of a Varied Life by Eggleston, George Cary

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

I’ve been cudgelling my brains for weeks to get the answer to that question, Billy.

From A Campfire Girl's Happiness by Stewart, Jane L.

He talked nae mair o' wrestling, or cudgelling, or onything else that day.

From Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III by Various