Cudgel
name, noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A short heavy club with a rounded head used as a weapon.
"The guard hefted his cudgel menacingly and looked at the inmates."
- 2 a club that is used as a weapon wordnet
- 3 Anything that can be used as a threat to force one's will on another. figuratively
"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: […]"
- 1 To strike with a cudgel.
"The officer was violently cudgeled down in the midst of the rioters."
- 2 strike with a cudgel wordnet
- 3 To exercise (one's wits or brains) in an effort to force a memory or solution; to rack (one's mind).
"“Most remarkable,” murmured Tarzan, cudgeling his brain for some pretext upon which to turn the subject."
- 1 A locality in the Leeton council area, southern New South Wales, Australia.
Example
More examples"It will scarcely be any easier on the people if the cudgel with which they are beaten is called the people's cudgel."
Etymology
From Middle English kuggel, from Old English cyċġel (“a large stick, cudgel”), from Proto-West Germanic *kuggil, from Proto-Germanic *kuggilaz (“a 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 (“a stick with a rounded end”).
Related phrases
More for "cudgel"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.