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

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

Constance scanned the report and picked up her heavy cudgel.

From "Redwall" by Brian Jacques

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

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

While many ad-blocking apps are now basically cudgels that obstruct all ads, he said he expected there would later be “customizable, free ad blockers with a feature that offers a whitelist for some ads.”

From New York Times ● Sep. 18, 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

The boys sat down on the grassy bank and cudgeled their brains.

From Bert Wilson at Panama by J. W. Duffield

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

From Time Magazine Archive

In those days of duelling a man who let himself be cudgelled with impunity lost ground with the public, and sank in the esteem of the women.

From La Sorcière: The Witch of the Middle Ages by Jules Michelet

The pageants were fanciful enough, and poor Settle must have cudgelled his dull brains well for it.

From Old and New London Volume I by Walter Thornbury

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

Kenneth went hot and cold; his brain seemed paralysed; and when the Uhlans reined up a few yards away he had cudgelled his wits in vain for something to say.

From A Hero of Li?ge by Herbert Strang

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

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

There was something too roguish and wanton in his face, a look too like that of a schoolboy or a street Arab, to have survived much cudgeling.

From English: Composition and Literature by W. F. (William Franklin) Webster

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

But as a matter of fact his eyes were resting upon Lieutenant Siddons, and he was cudgelling his brain in an effort to 26remember where he had seen him before.

From Aces Up by Covington Clarke

He talked nae mair o' wrestling, or cudgelling, or onything else that day.

From Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III by Various