cudgel

From Middle English kuggel, from Old English cyċġel (“a large stick, cudgel”), from Proto-West Germanic *kuggil, from Proto-Germanic *kuggilaz (“knobbed instrument”), derivative of Proto-Germanic *kuggǭ (“cog, swelling”), from Proto-Indo-European *gewgʰ- (“swelling, bow”), from Proto-Indo-European *gew- (“to bow, bend, arch, curve”), equivalent to cog +‎ -el (diminutive suffix). Cognate with Middle Dutch coghele (“stick with a rounded end”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈkʌd͡ʒəl/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌdʒəl

cudgel (plural cudgels)

1. A short heavy club with a rounded head used as a weapon.

   The guard hefted his cudgel menacingly and looked at the inmates.

   • 1883, Howard Pyle, “Robin Hood Turns Butcher”, in The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood […], New York, N.Y.: […] Charles Scribner’s Sons […], →OCLC, part second, page 48:

     Then they had bouts of wrestling and of cudgel play, so that every day they gained in skill and strength.

   • 1678, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World, to That which is to Come: […], London: […] Nath[aniel] Ponder […], →OCLC; reprinted in The Pilgrim’s Progress (The Noel Douglas Replicas), London: Noel Douglas, […], 1928, →OCLC, page 114:

     So when he aroſe, he getteth him a grievous Crab-tree cudgel, and goes down into the Dungeon to them; and there firſt falls to Rateing of them, as if they were dogs: […]

2. (figurative) Anything that can be used as a threat to force one's will on another.
   • 1893, William Morris, The Ideal Book‎, published 1908:

     As above said, legibility depends also much on the design of the letter; and again I take up the cudgels against compressed type, and that especially in Roman letters: […]

   • 2015 April 15, Jonathan Martin, “For a Clinton, It’s Not Hard to Be Humble in an Effort to Regain Power”, in The New York Times‎:

     Mrs. Clinton’s Senate tenure, however, also demonstrated the risks of overcompensation: Not wanting to give Republicans fodder to portray her as soft on defense, she authorized President Bush to use force in Iraq and handed Mr. Obama a political cudgel to use against her.

   • 2019 July 17, Talia Lavin, “When Non-Jews Wield Anti-Semitism as Political Shield”, in GQ‎:

     [Minnesota Senator Steve] Daines isn’t the only example of right-wing politicians who wish to wield anti-Semitism as a convenient cudgel against their political enemies, with scant if any evidence. But Montana’s vanishingly small Jewish population makes it particularly clear that this strategy has little to do with flesh-and-blood Jews at all.

   • 2021 January 11, Mimi Swartz, “Never Forget What Ted Cruz Did”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     Mr. Cruz has been able to use his pseudo-intellectualism and his Ivy League pedigree as a cudgel.

• take up the cudgel for

cudgel (third-person singular simple present cudgels, present participle (US) cudgeling or (Commonwealth) cudgelling, simple past and past participle (US) cudgeled or (Commonwealth) cudgelled)

1. To strike with a cudgel.

   The officer was violently cudgeled down in the midst of the rioters.

   • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii]:

     I would cudgel him like a dog if he would say so.

   • 1675, [William] Wycherley, The Country-wife, a Comedy, […], London: Printed for Thomas Dring, […], →OCLC; republished London: Printed for T[homas] Dring, and sold by R. Bentley, and S. Magnes […], 1688, →OCLC, prologue:

     Poets like Cudgel'd Bullys, never do / At firſt, or ſecond blow, ſubmit to you; / But will provoke you ſtill and ne're have done, / Till you are weary ſirst, with laying on: […]

   • 1950, Jack Vance, “Mazirian the Magician”, in Dying Earth:

     Aboard the barge and so off the trail, the blessing lost its puissance and the barge-tender, who coveted Guyal's rich accoutrements, sought to cudgel him with a knoblolly.

2. To exercise (one's wits or brains).

• cudgel one's brain

• club
• singlestick

• club (weapon) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• cludge