cudgel

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

But in other circumstances, the law became a powerful cudgel wielded to influence concerns that at best had a tangential relationship to the environment.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 1, 2025

Constance strode up and down, holding a heavy cudgel in her paws as she urged them on.

From "Redwall" by Brian Jacques

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

The flags are tools of education for the uninitiated; they’re cudgels for progress and change; they’re signposts of welcome and reassurance.

From Washington Post ● Nov. 22, 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

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

The knights of the Round Table were sent out as a measure against Fort Mayne, and the choleric barons who lived by Fort Mayne took the cudgels with the ferocity of despair.

From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White

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

Thou shalt be soundly cudgeled, if I heartily begin, and let thy tail fall, Hrimgerd!

From The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson by Saemund Sigfusson

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

From Time Magazine Archive

She was not an ordinary working-woman, he saw that, and cudgelled his brains to find out how she came into the country at all.

From The Sweep Winner by Nat Gould

“I have it, Tony,” whispered Phil after a few minutes’ silence, during which he cudgelled his brains for a means of escape.

From A Gallant Grenadier A Tale of the Crimean War by F. S. (Frederick Sadleir) Brereton

I sent my thoughts back to the morning of the fourteenth, and cudgelled my memory in the hope that Swasfield might have dropped some hint which had passed unnoticed.

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

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

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

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

One was driven by wind and sun; even the clouds took a hand in cudgeling one on.

From The Camerons of Highboro by Beth Bradford Gilchrist

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 stood for a moment irresolute, with clenched fists, cudgelling my brains and wishing that I was anywhere else upon the wide face of the earth.

From Treasure of Kings Being the Story of the Discovery of the \"Big Fish,\" or the Quest of the Greater Treasure of the Incas of Peru. by Charles Gilson

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