Cudgel

//ˈkʌd͡ʒəl// name, noun, verb

Definitions

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A locality in the Leeton council area, southern New South Wales, Australia.
Noun
  1. 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. 2
    a club that is used as a weapon wordnet
  3. 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: […]"

Verb
  1. 1
    To strike with a cudgel.

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

  2. 2
    strike with a cudgel wordnet
  3. 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."

Etymology

Etymology 1

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”).

Etymology 2

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”).

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