bludgeon

First attested in 1730. Origin uncertain, perhaps of Cornish origin (recorded as blogon c. 1450) or from Middle French bougeon, a diminutive of bouge (“club, stick”).

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ˈblʌd͡ʒ.ən/

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• Rhymes: -ʌdʒən

bludgeon (plural bludgeons)

1. A short, heavy club, often of wood, which is thicker or loaded at one end.

   We smashed the radio with a steel bludgeon.

• truncheon

bludgeon (third-person singular simple present bludgeons, present participle bludgeoning, simple past and past participle bludgeoned)

1. (transitive) To strike or hit with something hard, usually on the head; to club.

   The apprehended rioter was bludgeoned to death.

   • 1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Soldier in White”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 168:

     They didn't get shot to death in hold-ups, strangled to death in rapes, stabbed to death in saloons, bludgeoned to death with axes by parents or children or die summarily by some other act of God.

   • 2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, pages 16–17:

     Thomas Briggs, a senior bank clerk in the City, lived in Hackney, and on 9 July 1864 he was returning there by train from Fenchurch Street after a Saturday spent at work when he was bludgeoned to death in a first-class carriage, probably by a young German tailor named Franz Müller. (Let's hope it was Müller, because he was hanged for it.) And so Briggs was an all-round pioneer: an early commuter and the very first victim of a railway murder.

2. (transitive) To coerce someone, as if with a bludgeon.

   Their favorite method was bludgeoning us with the same old arguments in favor of their opinions.

   • 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Noveria:

     Gianna Parasini: You've never worked in the corporate world, have you, Commander? You can't bludgeon through bureaucracy.
     Shepard: I can bludgeon pretty hard.

• (to club): cudgel
• (coerce): harass, pummel

• bludgeoner

• clobber
• beat

• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “bludgeon”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.