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

On the other side of the fire the man in the heavy cloak held his iron cudgel ready with both hands.

From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss

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

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

From BBC ● Sep. 13, 2015

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

From New York Times ● Jan. 27, 2015

Some carried cudgels, others staves; all wore pleated skirts, leathern sandals, and patchwork cloaks sewn from squares of many colors to echo the many-colored bricks of Meereen.

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

I cudgeled my brain for a German expression.

From Winning a Cause World War Stories by Inez Bigwood

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

From Time Magazine Archive

His mother fled the house, and the rabble entered, and so cudgelled Pablo that he was fain to return to the inn; and, after being groomed, he allowed the archbishop to mount him.

From Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes Spanish and Portuguese Folklore by Various

Even the despised and cudgelled ass had a share in his protection.

From Spanish Highways and Byways by Katharine Lee Bates

And when he reached the door, he stopped; he dared not go in, but cudgelled his brain to find some pretext, some excuse, for calling.

From San-Cravate; or, The Messengers; Little Streams by Charles Paul de Kock

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

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

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

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

The man was cudgeling his brains for an excuse whereby he might carry her off in triumph to the Bois.

From A Son of the Immortals by Howard Chandler Christy

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

O ho, then it seems the cudgelling and turning away were pure invention; I am glad I understand it.

From Dryden's Works Vol. 3 (of 18) Sir Martin Mar-All; The Tempest; An Evening's Love; Tyrannic Love by John Dryden