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

He was dressed for batde in an armored shirt made from tree bark and twist ties, with his wooden cudgel and his reed pipes hanging from his belt.

From "The Last Olympian" by Rick Riordan

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

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

Carragher takes up the cudgels: “We try to have a theme in every show,” he explains.

From The Guardian ● Aug. 23, 2014

The grounds came to life with teeming swarms of Guerrilla Shrews armed to the teeth with rapiers, cudgels and slings.

From "Redwall" by Brian Jacques

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

Felix cudgeled his brains, endeavoring to recall anything he had ever heard or read covering this strange ground.

From Rocky Mountain Boys Camping in the Big Game Country by Rathborne, St. George

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

From Time Magazine Archive

She cudgelled her brains but was at a loss to find a plan.

From The Sweep Winner by Gould, Nat

He cudgelled his brains for some device by which a message might be conveyed in safety, and could only think of the sweeper.

From The Outcaste by Penny, F. E.

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)

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

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

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

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

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 face raised, as if she were still cudgeling her brain, she crossed toward the vestibule.

From Apron-Strings by Gates, Eleanor

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)

He strolled home cudgelling his brain whether never to speak to or look at her again until she came to him, or to hunt her up and fight it all out with her.

From The "Genius" by Dreiser, Theodore