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

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

Black abolitionists such as James Forten and Lemuel Haynes almost immediately began using the Declaration’s stirring language as a cudgel against slavery.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 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

We all think differently now, so today there is no-one who will take up the cudgels for Matzneff.

From BBC ● Jan. 18, 2020

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

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

The man was ripped, and various axes and cudgels dangled off his many belts and sashes.

From "Shadowshaper" by Daniel José Older

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 Jepson, Edgar

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

From Time Magazine Archive

He cudgelled his brains how to avoid the consequences of his indiscretion.

From Bindle Some Chapters in the Life of Joseph Bindle by Jenkins, Herbert George

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 Hoffmann, E. T. A. (Ernst Theodor Amadeus)

Harper cudgelled his still dazed brain, and finding none, shook his head.

From The Black Moth A Romance of the XVIIIth Century by Heyer, Georgette

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

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

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

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 McElroy, John

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

Some days before, the brother, at the peril of his life and of a cudgelling, had caught their stalled-beast--so they called the sparrow--under a window-sill in the Castle.

From The Campaner Thal and Other Writings by Jean Paul

Mr. Redling was that rare bird, a strong politician without a fad, and, therefore, a veritable haven of refuge to a candidate in the cudgelling of an election.

From The Turnstile by Mason, A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley)