cudgel

A growing number of self-described creatives wield legal protections, legitimate and non, as a cudgel against others.

From Salon ● Jul. 7, 2026

The administration again turned to trade as a tool to achieve various aims and as a cudgel.

From Barron's ● Mar. 4, 2026

But some experts say such fees cannot be used as a cudgel to punish players that break a contract and transfer.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 24, 2025

Nor should it be used as a cudgel, like “The Little List” in “The Mikado.”

From MarketWatch ● Dec. 8, 2025

To let the world shape your desire and love into a cudgel with which to drive you back into a cave of fear.

From "Beauty Queens" by Libba Bray

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

Her partner Lauren Winfield-Hill then took up the cudgels and when she was out with the score on 92, the stage was set for Heather Knight and Nat Sciver.

From BBC ● Jan. 30, 2022

Larson has explained, is that the framers were concerned that accusations of treason not be transformed into criminal cudgels against political enemies.

From Washington Post ● Feb. 5, 2018

Licenses do serve as legal cudgels to protect practitioners from competition.

From New York Times ● Jan. 27, 2015

The man was ripped, and various axes and cudgels dangled off his many belts and sashes.

From "Shadowshaper" by Daniel José Older

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

Mullen, batting for Pipp, cudgeled the ball to left, and Baker and Gedeon counted.

From News Writing The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories by Spencer, M. Lyle (Matthew Lyle)

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

From Time Magazine Archive

He cudgelled his fat brain for something to say, which would appease her.

From The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle The Trail of the Seven Cedars by Frey, Hildegard G. (Hildegard Gertrude)

I sent my thoughts back to the morning of the fourteenth, and cudgelled my memory in the hope that Swasfield might have dropped some hint which had passed unnoticed.

From The Courtship of Morrice Buckler A Romance by Mason, A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley)

She simply accepted it as such, and cudgelled her brain for another more plausible solution of the mystery.

From Marjorie Dean, High School Junior by Lester, Pauline

Evidently the young man had been thinking of anything but the countersign, for when he was halted and asked to give the countersign words he cudgelled his brain in vain.

From Historic Shrines of America Being the Story of One Hundred and Twenty Historic Buildings and the Pioneers Who Made Them Notable by Faris, John T. (John Thomson)

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

On the other hand, their release of 214 Americans for combat would invite a propaganda cudgeling from China, ever eager to berate Moscow for betraying its allies in Hanoi.

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

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

From Time Magazine Archive

She kept silent, cudgeling her brain to find some excuse.

From The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. by Maupassant, Guy de

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

He was still cudgelling his brain when he fell into a fitful and uneasy sleep.

From The Wireless Officer by Westerman, Percy F. (Percy Francis)

Mr. Redling was that rare bird, a strong politician without a fad, and, therefore, a veritable haven of refuge to a candidate in the cudgelling of an election.

From The Turnstile by Mason, A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley)