cudgel

But they’re part of a growing number of self-described creatives who wield legal protections, legitimate and non, as a cudgel against others.

From Salon ● Jul. 7, 2026

Another was to give investors such as government pension funds a cudgel to pressure companies into reducing CO2 emissions.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 29, 2026

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

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

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

Battle is waged with cudgels gripped by velvet gloves in the strange world of football.

From BBC ● Sep. 13, 2015

Before them stood two Brazen Beasts, armed with cudgels, spears, and short swords.

From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin

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

Her eyes moved as she cudgeled her brain.

From Apron-Strings by Eleanor Gates

Dollars & Scents In Manhattan prominent artists cudgelled their imaginations for the perfect perfume bottle.

From Time Magazine Archive

And he cudgelled his brain for a subject at once safe and sympathetic, without finding one.

From Chippinge Borough by Stanley J. Weyman

He cudgelled his brains how to avoid the consequences of his indiscretion.

From Bindle Some Chapters in the Life of Joseph Bindle by Herbert George Jenkins

She cudgelled her brains to devise some means of getting the better of her captives.

From The Mystery of the Green Ray by William Le Queux

He spoke more slowly now, as if he cudgelled his brain for the most biting sarcasm, the most unbearable insolence.

From No Clue A Mystery Story by James Hay

That was followed by Black Snow, a cudgeling of Stanislavsky.

From Time Magazine Archive

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

Mr. Lippmann is mistaken when he uses the map as a means of cudgeling our academic system of education.

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

One was driven by wind and sun; even the clouds took a hand in cudgeling one on.

From The Camerons of Highboro by Beth Bradford Gilchrist

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

This was urgent; but no cudgelling of my brain suggested one, and at last I saw myself on the brink of destitution.

From Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 by Herbert Willis

He sat, thinking of this, cudgelling his brains for some contrivance by which he and Marion Fay might be brought together again with the least possible delay.

From Marion Fay by Anthony Trollope