cudgel

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

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

Now I saw the mayor heading back to the wagon accompanied by a tall fellow carrying a long cudgel, the constable unless I missed my guess.

From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss

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

Knowledge advances through the clash of ideas; the contrarian is often the herald of a new insight; labels such as “settled” and “consensus” are the cudgels of fundamentalists.

From Washington Post ● Jan. 3, 2023

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

From BBC ● Jan. 18, 2020

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

Within were three long hooded cloaks made from myriad small squares of cloth sewn together, three cudgels, three shortswords, three masks of polished brass.

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

To have answered “No” to these questions would have insured my death, therefore I cudgeled my brains for a fitting reply to them, well knowing what depended upon it.

From In the Days of Drake by J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher

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

From Time Magazine Archive

And though she cudgelled her brains, she could not come at it.

From The Rainbow by D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

That was my idea, and for several days I cudgelled my brain to find among my models one that would, physically and morally, represent all this.

From An Englishman in Paris Notes and Recollections by Albert D.

"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 Henry Curling

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

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

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

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

From Time Magazine Archive

He that can reconcile blows and reverence may, for aught I know, deserve for his pains, a civil respectful cudgeling whenever he can meet with it.”

From A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father by William Cooper

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

When I refused everything, he sat down heavily on the sofa, frowning, and angrily cudgelling his wits for something to say—in vain.

From The White Peacock by D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

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