cudgel
Americannoun
verb (used with object)
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:
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
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
He swings a heavy cudgel Whenever he walks out.
From "Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices from a Medieval Village" by Laura Amy Schlitz
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 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 a reason for the presence of Masterson so far from home, but was unable to arrive at any solution till an idea suddenly struck him.
From The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone by Bonner, Richard
Dollars & Scents In Manhattan prominent artists cudgelled their imaginations for the perfect perfume bottle.
From Time Magazine Archive
Since the gun episode, resulting so signally in the biter being bit, and bit hard, Sonnenberg had cudgelled his crafty and scheming brain to hit upon a plan, but hitherto in vain.
From A Veldt Official A Novel of Circumstance by Mitford, Bertram
“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 Brereton, F. S. (Frederick Sadleir)
Kenneth went hot and cold; his brain seemed paralysed; and when the Uhlans reined up a few yards away he had cudgelled his wits in vain for something to say.
From A Hero of Li?ge by Strang, Herbert
Charley cudgelled his brains continually, but for once his imagination failed him.
From Tales of the Fish Patrol by Varian, George
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
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
I have spent hours and hours in cudgeling my brains in the vain hope of extracting the slightest recollection that would have given me a gleam of light.
From The Woman of Mystery by Leblanc, Maurice
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
While he was cudgelling his brains about it, a giant came to him and offered to build the church on condition that St. Lawrence tell him his name before the church was completed.
From The Swedish Fairy Book by Various
They walked away, the little woman still sighing, her escort cudgelling his brain to think of something to say to console her.
From San-Cravate; or, The Messengers; Little Streams by Kock, Charles Paul de
Definitions 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.
