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

Information is a beacon, a cudgel, an olive branch, a deterrent— all depending on who wields it and how.

From "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything" by Steven D. Levitt

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

Her partner Lauren Winfield-Hill then took up the cudgels and when she was out with the score on 92, the stage was set for Heather Knight and Nat Sciver.

From BBC ● Jan. 30, 2022

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

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

Before them stood two Brazen Beasts, armed with cudgels, spears, and short swords.

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

I cudgeled and cudgeled my brains wondering what I could do for her, and all I could think of was the hospital at Camp Axton.

From The Lost Wagon by James Arthur Kjelgaard

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

From Time Magazine Archive

My friend in the gallery," continued Sir Ferdinando, "reminds me of the very word for which I should in vain have cudgelled my brain.

From The Fixed Period by Anthony Trollope

In those days of duelling a man who let himself be cudgelled with impunity lost ground with the public, and sank in the esteem of the women.

From La Sorcière: The Witch of the Middle Ages by Jules Michelet

She simply accepted it as such, and cudgelled her brain for another more plausible solution of the mystery.

From Marjorie Dean, High School Junior by Pauline Lester

Evidently the young man had been thinking of anything but the countersign, for when he was halted and asked to give the countersign words he cudgelled his brain in vain.

From Historic Shrines of America Being the Story of One Hundred and Twenty Historic Buildings and the Pioneers Who Made Them Notable by John T. (John Thomson) Faris

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

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

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

Mullins began to appreciate the situation, and he was cudgeling his brains for an explanation.

From Chester Rand or The New Path to Fortune by Horatio Alger

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

Clara was cudgelling her brain for some new scheme, for some new line of action, when an important suggestion came from an unforeseen quarter.

From The White Terror and The Red A novel of revolutionary Russia by Abraham Cahan

I waited, straining my ears to hear the little stairway creak behind the door at my back, and cudgelling my brains to think what I should do.

From The Courtship of Morrice Buckler A Romance by A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley) Mason