cudgel
Americannoun
verb (used with object)
-
cudgels,
present (3rd person singular)
-
cudgeled,
past participle, past
-
cudgelled,
past participle, past (especially British)
-
cudgeling,
present participle
-
cudgelling
present participle (especially British)
idioms
-
take up the cudgels, to come to the defense or aid of someone or something.
-
cudgel one's brains, to try to comprehend or remember.
I cudgeled my brains to recall her name.
noun
-
a short stout stick used as a weapon
-
to join in a dispute, esp to defend oneself or another
verb
-
(tr) to strike with a cudgel or similar weapon
-
to think hard about a problem
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
cudgelsimple
-
cudgelssimple
-
have cudgeledperfect
-
have cudgelledperfect
-
has cudgeledperfect
-
has cudgelledperfect
-
am cudgelingprogressive
-
am cudgellingprogressive
-
are cudgelingprogressive
-
are cudgellingprogressive
-
is cudgelingprogressive
-
is cudgellingprogressive
-
have been cudgelingperfect progressive
-
have been cudgellingperfect progressive
-
has been cudgelingperfect progressive
-
has been cudgellingperfect progressive
Past
-
cudgeledsimple
-
cudgelledsimple
-
had cudgeledperfect
-
had cudgelledperfect
-
was cudgelingprogressive
-
was cudgellingprogressive
-
were cudgelingprogressive
-
were cudgellingprogressive
-
had been cudgelingperfect progressive
-
had been cudgellingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of cudgel
before 900; Middle English cuggel, Old English cycgel; akin to German Kugel ball
Explanation
A cudgel is a thick club or stick, used to attack or defend against an attacker. A rioting mob might be armed with cudgels. A cudgel is a rough kind of weapon — the club a police officer carries, for example, is more likely to be called a baton or a truncheon. An angry protester might wield a cudgel, or a burglar might carry one along during a robbery. The Old English root of cudgel is cycgel, "club with a rounded head," possibly from the Proto-Indo-European geu, "to curve or to bend."
Vocabulary lists containing cudgel
Twelfth Night
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The Merchant of Venice
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Tolkien Reading Day, List 9
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
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
When they had called many times, at last the Gate-keeper came out, and they saw that he carried a great cudgel.
From "The Return of the King" by J.R.R. Tolkien
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
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
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
Carragher takes up the cudgels: “We try to have a theme in every show,” he explains.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 23, 2014
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
He cudgeled his brains to invent some reasonable excuse for bidding her farewell.
From The Great Mogul by Louis Tracy
Dollars & Scents In Manhattan prominent artists cudgelled their imaginations for the perfect perfume bottle.
From Time Magazine Archive
He cudgelled his fat brain for something to say, which would appease her.
From The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle The Trail of the Seven Cedars by Hildegard G. (Hildegard Gertrude) Frey
"Now," answered his friend, "what honor can lie in blacking your face with mustachios and assuming the burlesque disguise of a buffoon, in order to be cudgelled on a public stage?"
From Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 A Series of Pen and Pencil Sketches of the Lives of More Than 200 of the Most Prominent Personages in History by Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
Charley cudgelled his brains continually, but for once his imagination failed him.
From Tales of the Fish Patrol by George Varian
“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
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
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
That was followed by Black Snow, a cudgeling of Stanislavsky.
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
“But I can not now recall ever having dared to find fault with you, Mademoiselle,” I said, cudgeling my brains.
From Francezka by Molly Elliot Seawell
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
Well," said Euchar, "if you had been bowed out of their company, or even come in for a little touch of cudgelling, wouldn't it all have been a part of the mutual interdependence of things?
From The Serapion Brethren. Vol. II by Ernst Theordor Wilhelm Hoffmann
But as a matter of fact his eyes were resting upon Lieutenant Siddons, and he was cudgelling his brain in an effort to 26remember where he had seen him before.
From Aces Up by Covington Clarke
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
